A little heads up can go a long way in the world of public sector tendering. Suppliers usually rely on Prior Information Notices (PINs) to give them a heads up that a contract was soon to be out there to bid on.
PINs are a great way to prepare for a bid response, but the time a supplier has to prepare their bid off the back of a PIN can vary: some PINs can be live for as little as a month before the contract notice comes out.
The longer the supplier has, the better position they are in to make a successful bid. That’s why Tenders Direct has launched Advance Tender Alerts.
Advance Tender Alerts provide suppliers with notifications of tenders, related to their business, up to six months before they expire – covering both above and below threshold opportunities.
Acting as a tender forecaster, Advance Tender Alerts allows businesses to:
- Engage early with buyers to build a relationship
- Have extra time to work on their bid response
- Join forces and plan a bid strategy with other smaller suppliers
- Stay ahead of the competition
The information provided as part of the service is particularly useful, detailing what authority published the tender, what the tender was for and the ‘D Day’ for when the contract is expected to expire. The new feature is able to provide this for all tenders issued with an end date over the past five years – all 400,000 of them!
The new feature is available as an add-on to annual subscriptions to Tenders Direct. Find out more about Advance Tender Alerts or call 0800 222 9010 .
Question please – not related to this blog but I have searched…
If a company we’re contracting with via a LUPC framework agreement is subject to an acquistion, are there any procurement implications with this?
thanks
Hi Ben,
It would depend on the details of the contract that was signed by the supplier when they joined the framework and also the terms of the acquisition- are they operating as a parent company or taking over the supplier and therefore changing its legal structure?
Sorry I cant give a definite answer but if you can look into that information and would like to contact us again I would be happy to provide more guidance if I can.
Gemma
Thank you Gemma.. this is very helpful.
I’m assuming this is the same if the company that has been acquired is in the process of being a place on the framework. Otherwise an acquiring company could essentially ‘buy’ their way onto a framework..
This would seem to be a very useful service. However I think the description has confused the terms “Tender” and “Contract” – is the “end date” referred to the originally stated Contract expiry date or the stated deadline for receipt of Tenders ?: Elsewhere I think the word “Tender” should be replaced by “Invitation to Tender (ITT)” or “Contract Opportunity”.
Hi Digby, Thanks for your feedback! The end date is the contract expiry date/end date rather than the deadline for receipt of tenders.