Can New SMEs Win Public Sector Contracts?

Short answer – yes! But read on…

If you’re a new SME looking to break into the UK public sector, you’re not alone. You might already have tried – perhaps unsuccessfully – to bid for opportunities and lost out to established SMEs or larger companies.

As our earlier blog posts have said – and as we say on our home page – government buyers are encouraged, and actually required, to work with SMEs. There’s a significant, and growing, appetite for fresh thinking and innovation.

You should take advantage of that – and get started today as there’s work to do even before you get to the stage of actually drafting your response and bidding.

1. Get registered

To get started, you need to register yourself / your company in the right places and on the right platforms. Your first priority should be to register on the ‘Central digital platform’ which is hosted on the Find a Tender service.

You will find that many different contracting authorities use different procurement platforms to manage their procurement opportunities. It’s easy to get lost in all the different platforms but you can worry about that later. For now, just get yourself registered on Find a Tender.

By the way, contracting authorities is just a technical term for the public sector body which is tendering for products or services. This could be local authorities (e.g. councils), central government departments (e.g. Ministry of Defence) or bodies like the NHS.

2. Get ready to bid

Even if you’re new, you can, and should, get yourself bid-ready. This means:

• Researching (on Find a Tender) earlier, relevant opportunities to see what contracting authorities in your field typically require from bidding organisations including in terms of certifications, financial standing, insurance etc.

• Having key corporate policies drafted and in place including data protection, health & safety and modern slavery.

• Securing relevant requirements like Cyber Essentials certification and anything else which your research uncovered as being requirements for bidding organisations.

• Developing and drafting examples of relevant experience and skills which you can use to demonstrate your ability to successfully deliver the requirements of any future opportunities. Doing this will reduce the workload later when it comes to bidding.

Our blog post on eligibility criteria is highly relevant and worth a read.

We can help you get bid-ready even if there is nothing you want to bid for in the immediate future. Just let us know!

3. Exploit your strengths

You don’t need to be the biggest player or have an amazingly slick website with an Oxbridge team to win bids.

You need to demonstrate that you meet the requirements and you need to show what additional value you bring to the delivery of that product or service.

Think about the following when working up what your strengths are and how you can leverage that when developing and designing your bid:

Contracting authority strategies and plans – what are their plans and objectives and how can you help deliver those (if you secure the contract)? You can find authority strategies and plans on their websites. For example, you can find Surrey County Council strategies and plans here.

Social value – as a smaller organisation, you might be better placed to understand the needs of your local community than a larger national operator. What can you localised offer on social value look like?

Partnerships – perhaps you have established partnerships and arrangements with local organisations that can add additional value to the delivery of local authority services.

Fundamentally, what value for money will the contracting authority get by awarding a contract to you? All of this is worth thinking about ahead of time – and absolutely must be reflected in your bid when it comes time to submit your response for any opportunity.

4. Partnerships

There are many opportunities which any one company cannot successful bid for, and deliver, on their own. Forming partnerships with other companies and bidding as one new organisation – e.g. consortiums – is one way of being part of a winning bid for which you would otherwise not be successful.

Forming partnerships and consortiums with other providers can be a daunting prospect for smaller providers so get in contact with us if you want to explore opportunities in this space.

TL;DR / bottom line

You absolutely can be successful when bidding for public sector opportunities even when there are established SMEs, and larger companies, in the market.

The public sector wants to work with SMEs. With the right preparation and support from Tender Support, you can compete — and win.

Seen a new opportunity you like the look of? Want to be ready when the time is right? Get in touch!