Managing Budgets and Improving Services by Tendering

As the financial squeeze begins to take hold this may be just the right time to consider tendering services.

It surprises me how often people stick with an existing supplier, rolling over contracts, undertaking value for money assessments and generally finding reason not to re-tender services convinced that what they have is the best service possible.

If you are looking to make financial savings now might be the time to consider re-tendering some of your existing contracts.

There are good reasons to re-tender periodically. Number one is that as you are feeling the pinch so are potential suppliers – they are more likely to give better prices or find innovative ways to add value in these circumstances; number two is that as technology moves on so do opportunities for suppliers to make their offerings more attractive, for example, through cost savings brought about by new machinery, equipment and systems.

Another reason is that companies are constantly adjusting to ever changing circumstances; companies are merging and changing so that the offer that they made you two years ago when you asked them for a price may be very out of date to what they can offer today.

Re-tendering also gives you an opportunity to revise the specifications that you currently use to manage your externally supplied services.  These can usually benefit from being brought up to date in terms of user needs, technological advances and legal requirements.  We have undertake numerous tendering exercises and have good experiences working with project teams that comprise staff, residents and external consultants to ensure that the needs of the various stakeholders are recognised and addressed.

People often avoid tendering because they have a comfortable working relationship with current providers: ‘they know what we want and we know how to handle them’.  This can be a good thing but it can also be limiting – when new suppliers are appointed they are usually full of enthusiasm to satisfy you, make you a reference site, go the extra mile.  When the contract has been running for some time the enthusiasm can fall off and ‘what gets measured gets done’.

This is not to say that long term contractual arrangements cannot remain good but a good supplier has little to fear from a bit of healthy competition so long as the competitive process is fairly managed.

If you are looking to make financial savings now might be the time to consider re-tendering some of your existing contracts.

Ray Mears speaks at the Test Valley Business Awards 2008/9

Ray Mears

As a member of the Test Valley Business Awards Steering Group I was proud to attend the gala awards evening last night. Ian Axton of Andover Sound was host for the evening which had over 200 guests and was held at The Lights in Andover.

Our guest for the evening was Ray Mears, the well known bushcraft and woodlore expert. Ray talked about the difficulties that exist in today’s business world and how new businesses started in a tough economic climate will be well placed to survive when the recovery starts. As well as talking about business in general, and his own business, Ray recalled some of his experiences working in the more remote areas of the world where life can be hard but satisfying

Ray described an encounter where modern methods and native customs had led him to consider sustainability in a new light. Local people had been used to living off the fruits of the land and simply discarding the natural packaging, which, being organic, would rot and recycle naturally (he was referring to peels and skins of fruits etc); when modern packaging of tins and plastics arrived the locals simply discarded these in a similar way, but they do not rot with such speed, thus leading to a very untidy and potentially dangerous environment. He went on to reflect that in our society we produce just as much, and probably more, waste but pay to have it taken away and out of sight. Ray explained that his own business is very much concerned with creating sustainability but included an element of community and fun.

The awards themselves were as follows:

The Test Valley Borough Council New Business Of The Year Awards

• Winner – WKD Events
• Commended – First Impressions, PJ Landscaping

The HSA Business Excellence Though People Award

• Winner – Stanbridge Earls School
• Commended – Romsey Dental Care, Wellow Fitness Centre

The Star Technology Services e-Business Award

• Winner – Nature’s Harvest
• Commended – Giftbagz.co.uk, www.bid-no-bid.com

The University of Southamption Science Park Innovation and Technology Award

• Winner – PhotonStar LED Ltd
• Commended – Ace Liftaway Ltd, Trilogy Communications

Hamphire County Council Small Business of the Year Award

• Winner – Blumarine Ltd
• Commended – iCandy Design, Thinking Space Systems Ltd

If you are interested in the 2009/10 awards, or if you wouuld like to talk about what is involved in establishing your own awards campaign, please get in touch.

Introducing the social housing sector to TeamR

This week I have been working with Andy from TeamR introducing him to some of my contacts in the social housing sector.

TeamR is a ‘managment product’ that analyses teams that are internal and external to organisations and identifies areas where greater efficiency can be introduced.  Andy and Don, Andy’s business partner, are so confident in their approach to teams that they make an offer that if the client doesn’t achieve twice the value of their fee in savings they will refund half the fee.

Before recommending them to my contacts I had several discussions with them to find out about how they work and gained confidence in them.  I also took up references from organisations that they had worked for and I found them to be well respected.

I found Andy and Don to be generous with their support and encouragement to me and others.  Don, in particular, is a keen online networker but he follows this up through face to face meetings.  Andy is great at explaining TeamR and what it can do for businesses.  They are good people to work with.

I enjoy working with Andy and Don and I am sure that we will be working together for mutual benefit for some time in the future.