When you first start out in the business world, it can be easy to feel intimidated by clients, especially if they’re more experienced than you are. I’ve been there! I was charged out to a client who was paying GBP600/day and I was just getting GBP200/day. It feels uncomfortable but you wouldn’t be there if they needed you.
But when it comes down to it, new clients are opportunities for growth and learning for everyone involved. That’s why I’m here to show you how to handle yourself with a new client so that both parties can come out of the meeting with great results!
But…. don’t spend your time learning from them, do what you can within your abilities and scope of the job. Don’t fall in the pleasing mode of just doing anything because of the imposter syndrome.
Be well mannered
This is a given when dealing with anyone, first impression matters and it is the way you leave a lasting impression on your client. Being polite and well mannered will go a long way in making sure that your reputation stays intact.
Be polite and courteous
Respect the client’s time and resources
Be professional
Be honest about your subject matter knowledge, especially if you don’t know something. If you’ve never worked with a particular software package, or the client is not familiar with a certain industry jargon, don’t be afraid to admit that! Clients value honesty over pretending to know everything (and they will respect your honesty).
Flexibility – Clients often have many questions throughout the course of a project. Embrace this as an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge; however, resist the urge to give lengthy answers unless the client asks for them.
Ask questions and listen to their pains.
In terms of getting work from a new client it might be worth reaching out to them before the end of a recent project of theirs. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions about their recent pains on the project and how they can potentially try someone new if the previous service they had were not decent.
Asking questions is an important part of any business interaction because it helps both sides get clear on what they want out of the relationship. It’s also more effective when you can use these questions as an icebreaker rather than filling an awkward silence with idle chitchat. Getting to know their pains during their previous projects will help you understand what you can improve on to wow them when delivering your service to them.
Ask questions on potential new tasks or jobs that are coming up, or any other problems that they may have which they can help on. Try not to sell your services for every sentence that comes out of their mind but I would suggest to look at listening for their problems to see where you can offer your services. People do like to talk about their problems and be listened to.
If they are not taking the hint on offering your a new service, it is always good to ask the hardest questions “do you have any services you’ll need from me” or even “do you know anyone who would benefit from my service”. It’s always good to try closing.
Don’t push your service.
When working with new clients, you don’t have a lot of information about the project or person. That makes it important to be careful not to push your service. It’s easy to assume that a client is looking for what you offer, but they may not actually need your services—or they might want something different than what you offer.
Don’t try to sell your service or push yourself on them if it feels uncomfortable (to them). If they don’t seem interested in learning more about what you do, try asking open-ended questions instead of answering all the questions that come up in their mind right away (and selling yourself).
It can also help if you keep yourself open and flexible so that even if someone does ask about pricing or availability, there aren’t any awkward pauses when the conversation comes back around again later down the road after learning more about each other through follow-up emails sent over time since first meeting face-to-face.
Try to be as positive as possible about the client’s current situation.
While it may be tempting to give your client the benefit of the doubt and assume that they know what they want, it is important to understand how the client feels about their situation.
You can do this by asking open-ended questions such as:
How did this problem come about?
What were you trying to accomplish when things started going wrong?
What brings you to looking at my service, and why now?
What are your current projects and where do you feel they are not doing well?
Try look at asking detailed questions of where you can help specifically and discuss potential solutions to see if they really need your service or not. In one instance I had a conversation with a Managing QS who was struggling with applications for payment as he had to do 30 of them or so in 3-4 days. I said instead of hiring someone in you could always amend your application dates and get the parties to agree to it, you can then stagger the applications and give yourself more time.
They would appreciate you more with this and potentially recommend you to others with offering a quick solution within your scope of service. (of course don’t give them recommendations for things you’re not competent in).
Be professional with integrity and honesty
When you’re meeting a new client, it’s important to be professional and respectful. You should also be honest and consistent in your behavior—don’t lie or behave unprofessionally. If you are considering engaging in unethical behavior, don’t do it!
Be flexible.
As a business owner, you’re used to being your own boss and leading the charge. That’s great in many ways (hello, flexible schedule!), but it can be a little disconcerting when you’re trying to help someone else achieve their goals. It can be hard not to feel like they’re encroaching on your territory—and if they do, that’s okay! You don’t have anything to prove at this point; just remember that you’re working with them because they value what you do for them more than anyone else could.
That said: it is totally okay for clients to ask questions about what’s going on in your business and ask if there are certain things or processes that need improvement based on their experience with other designers or agencies (or even previous experiences as a freelancer). If this happens, try not taking it personally—these people are paying customers after all! They want what’s best for themselves too so give thoughtful answers while being mindful of where your boundaries lie when answering questions like these
Be respectful of them and past clients, don’t bad mouth others
Be respectful of your new client, and of your past clients.
Don’t badmouth other companies to the new person you’re talking with. If someone does something that rubs you the wrong way, take a deep breath before commenting on it.
If you badmouth others they may feel that if they don’t do well with you that you would badmouth their experience with others. It’s always bad to place new clients in this position.
Friendly and enthusiastic
In your interactions with the client, it’s essential that you be friendly and enthusiastic. You want to put them at ease and make them feel confident in your abilities. You should also be positive about their current situation, even if it’s not ideal.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions! This is a great way for you to gather information about what they’re looking for and how they want things done, but also provides an opportunity for you to showcase your expertise and knowledge of the industry by sharing some tips or ideas of your own. (But don’t be too intellectual and just dumb down the content, you’re there to listen and identify issues that you can resolve).
Don’t push your services on them immediately—only offer services that they actually need or request, otherwise there’s a good chance they’ll get turned off by seeming too aggressive right off the bat (and maybe even end up taking their business elsewhere).
Be professional with integrity and honesty, especially when describing what you can do for them—your clients will appreciate it if everything goes smoothly without any concerns over whether someone might take advantage of them later down the road because that means less stress overall which leads into…
Listen to your client.
When a new client comes to you, it’s important to listen. Listen to what they are saying, but also listen for what they are not saying. Pay attention to the tone of their voice and how they respond to your questions. Listen for any changes in their facial expression or body language that may indicate discomfort or disagreement with something you’ve said.
A good listener will also be able to read between the lines when a client is telling his story, which can help him understand why the client wants certain things from this work relationship (or lack thereof). This can help save time by allowing both parties to avoid spending too much time discussing irrelevant details about the project at hand – instead focusing on all aspects at once!
Be honest with yourself about what you can handle versus what you can’t handle.
When you’re first starting out, it can be easy to take on whatever work comes your way. But as you grow, you’ll want to make sure everything you do actually fits into your brand and is a good fit for the type of experience that clients expect from working with you.
That’s why it’s important to know yourself: What kind of clientele do YOU like working with? Are they relaxed or high-pressure? Will they give me room to be creative or will they be more concerned with results? Do I need a marketing background before taking on this new client?
If these questions are making your head spin, ask for help! A mentor or colleague might have insight into whether something is right for where you are in your career. Or if there are certain things about the project that don’t feel like a good fit (like being unable to offer time frames), say no—and find someone who can deliver what this new client needs from them instead.
Stick to your strengths.
To be the best you can be, it’s important to know what your strengths are. This applies to everything in life, not just business. If you’re a good surveyor, don’t try to force yourself into being a project manager, designer or planner as well (even if you can use p6 or ms projects).
It’s also important for you to stay realistic about your own limitations (and those of others on your team) and know when it’s time to call in backup or hire additional help. For example, if one of our surveyors gets sick and has trouble getting his work done on time during an important project deadline crunch period, I may need an extra pair of hands or another surveyor or technician who can pick up some slack until he recovers from his illness so that no deadlines are missed or projects suffer delays due to unexpected staffing issues like this one. (of course you have to let the client know of these delays and expectations)
Manage expectations
things will not go to plan, for example today I was suppose to finish a time impact analysis, and 4 quotes for a claim. This didn’t go to plan, I was only able to produce the quantum and couldn’t finish the validity of the variations. At 1pm I informed the commercial director to let him know that I will be done with the submission by tomorrow morning as I had more work than expected when I produced the time impact analysis.
With a new client, it’s important that you do everything in your power to make the experience a good one. It’s not just about selling them on your services; it’s about getting them to trust and rely on you as an expert in your field. This can be tricky for some people because they’re afraid of being seen as pushy or aggressive, but if you keep these tips in mind when approaching new clients then I promise they’ll appreciate how much effort went into getting there!
In this entry, we will cover tendering and the different stages in tendering. I will try to be as comprehensive as possible to cover the routes, the forms, and tender instructions. I will be breaking this entry into 2–3 parts, as it is somewhat complicated and a lot to take in. Part 1 will cover the general procedure/sequence from beginning to end and Part 2–3 will include the different tender routes and OJEU tenders.
Note: Tendering goes hand in hand with procurement as they are interlinked so careful consideration must be made when selecting the tendering strategy.
It is important that a Quantity Surveyor fully comprehends tendering to avoid claims, post contract issues, administrative burden, and other legal actions. The tendering process helps take a decision that will determine a contractor on the quality of the business and the price paid for the service.
It is important to comprehend fully why tendering is important at selecting the suitable contractor for your works. You could not expect a large company such as Ferrovial, Balfour Beatty, Bam Nutall or Laing O’Rourke bidding for your house extension in the suburb. Likewise, with a small contractor bidding on a multi-billion pound infrastructure project. There are financial and experience factors in play (You’ll learn that PQQ helps qualify these contractors).
Just so that you are not confused between tendering and procurement, Procurement is the act of obtaining goods and services (a contractor) to undertake the project. Tendering is a phase of the procurement route that simply allows you to get a price and how the contractor is appointed to undertake the works.
Note: this entry is still a work in progress and I will be updating it while I am going through the resources I have.
Tendering Practice Note
Before we can precede with the tendering routes, you need to understand the JCT Tendering Practice Note 2012 (‘Practice Note’) and the RICS Tendering strategies guidance note.
The tendering practice note 2012 outlines a detailed procedure for tendering in construction. The new version, superseding the version released in 2002, includes a detail outline process on two-stage tendering; pre-qualification method and other quality led tendering. It focuses on the selective single-stage, two-stage and competitive dialogue tendering procedures.
The practice note also covers the public procurement rules briefly as there is a requirement for projects falling under the EU public procurement threshold.
The guidance note helps standardise the procedure to ensure a fair tender is undertaken. The practice note includes model forms, which covers Preliminary enquiry, project information schedule, questionnaire, Invitation to tender, and form of tender. This gives you a template to work with. Of course, most businesses have their own templates that align with their company policies and procedures. They are intended for use in public and private sectors for the JCT main contract. However, these can still be used in other forms of contract.
As a side note: The rules first originated from the National Joint Consultative Committee for Building (‘NJCC’) which published many procedures. The NJCC was later disbanded and the procedure was subsequently adopted by the Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) Tendering practice note, which included a lot from the NJCC code of procedures for single stage selective tendering.
OJEU Tenders
In addition to the tendering practice notes, you must also be aware of the EU public procurement rules. This is often referred to the OJEU tendering rules.
Where the project that falls under the public and utility works with contract values estimated above the EC Procurement Threshold, then you are required to give a notice of a tender opportunity on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The OJEU tendering is a classic example of an open tender. (We’ll discuss this in detail throughout this entry)
I will cover this in much more detail in part 2 of this entry.
Tender Stages
To enable you to understand the different Tendering routes I’ve broken the stages in a tender in 3 general stages:
Short-listing the Contractors
Tender Stage
Tender Analysis and Selection
I’ve put them in these 3 general stages so that you can easily understand the sequence and it summarises the detailed outline from the practice note and RICS guidance note on tendering strategies. I will be covering them now and then re-summarise them in the three stages I created. You will also notice that each stage has a time limit that must be adhered to.
Note: I would recommend going through both the practice note and RICS guidance note mentioned at the beginning. They are very technical and not user-friendly but worth a good read.
I have tried to put the two documents in a clear and sequential flow below. If one of the stages is too short, refer back to the practice note and guidance note. The following stages will not be covering the tender routes that will be in the subsequent entries.
The purpose of the outline is so that you understand the full sequence from beginning to end.
Detail tender stages
To allow me to understand the tendering phases correctly, I have broken down the phases into easy portions that can be repeated and taught easily. While studying the stages/phases (let’s call it stages) from different sources (JCT Practice note, RICS Tendering Guidance Note, other books) I found that at each stage a set of document is produced to issue to the contractor or to us (the client). We also learn that at each stage there is some time factor/limit that needs to be considered.
So lookout for the (1) documents produced (2) time limit at each stage.
The 5 stages are highlighted below:
Stage 1 – Selection of contractors
Stage 2 – Preliminary enquiry
Stage 3 – Issuing the tender
Stage 4 – Tender process
Stage 5 – Tender opening, analysing & reporting
Stage 1 – Selection of contractors
There are 3 main ways of selecting contractors (Don’t confuse this with the tendering route, we’ll discuss the different routes in detail later. This is only for gathering a list of contractors for tender):
Open Tender
Under the Open tender, it allows for anyone to issue his or her interest for tender. This is usually undertaken via publishing the opportunity in newspapers, or on the web.
Additional note: For public projects that meet the OJEU threshold, you must publish the tender on the Official Journal of the European Union to get the expressed interest of the parties. This list will then be used to for the following stage (preliminary enquiry), to shorten the list to a manageable size.
Selective Tender
This a shortlist from the project or client team for the works. This can also be from a pre-agreed framework or in-house approved supplier list. Most companies have a list of pre-approved and pre-qualified vendors who you can use.
Single contractor selector
This route is for negotiation tendering route. We’ll cover this in much more detail in the subsequent entries.
Document produced
The document produced here is a list of contractors to issue the PQQ and to eventually invite them to tender.
Document produced:
List of Contractors
Time Factor
During this phase, it should not take too long to prepare a list gathered from the business, project team or client team. The list should start as soon as possible.
Time Limit:
The time limit here is not set in any rule (except for Open tenders – see note below). But must be done quickly to see who would be interested in the tender.
I personally gather a list of contractors from the team who we have had experience with and are an approved supplier. Then I give them a call to see who are interested and put them on a list for the preliminary enquiry. The aim here is just to get an indicative list to proceed with the tendering stages.
Open tender – For open tenders you should allow a for an extended period for receipt of interest from the market. The period is 35 days. [Pdf] [Archive]
Stage 2 – Preliminary enquiry
After building up a list of contractors through one of the ways discussed above, you now need to short-list the contractors to a manageable size (roughly to 3–6). To do this, you will need to identify who are actually interested in the works and who are capable of undertaking the work. For OJEU notices you already have the interest, now all you need to identify is if they are capable of undertaking the works.
This is achieved with a preliminary enquiry. You will be able to identify the interest and ability to undertake the work. The preliminary enquiry is to ensure that the contractors have the relevant:
Experience,
Financial ability,
Health and safety records, and;
Interest
Documents produced
The preliminary enquiry includes the following documents:
Project information Schedule (information about the project, work, etc.)
Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (A questionnaire to qualify the contractor)
Project Information Schedule
The project information schedule provides the contractors with enough information about the project to allow them to consider whether to provide their interest.
The project information schedule includes the following:
Project brief scope
Project’s Estimated value
Tendering procedure/instructions (The different types of procedures will be covered later in this entry.)
Method of tendering (if it is electronic or hard copy)
Dates & deadlines. (Including:)
When the preliminary enquiry deadline submission is
When the shortlist will be notified
When the tender documents will be issued
For how long the tender is opened
The return dates of the tender
The tender award
Design requirements from the contractor (including if there are novation agreements)
The contract data/particulars & mechanisms (The requirements for:)
Collateral Warranties/Third party rights
Bonds
Contractor’s insurance (Professional indemnity, Public liability etc.
Parent company guarantees
Performance bonds or other bonds
Mode of execution (deed or underhand)
Criteria for short-listing the contractors for tender
Criteria for contract award
Method of dealing with bid errors (we’ll cover this in more detail below)
In brief it should provide sufficient detail about the project, contract, and how the tender is going to be dealt with. This is to help avoid contract condition conflicts at a later stage of the tender process.
The pre-qualification questionnaire (‘PQQ’) enables us to assess the ability of the potential tenderers for the project. This can vary depending on the project and you should consider relevant pre-requisite to enable the contractor to work. For example in Rail you will need PTS operative as well as the contractor holding a RISQS certificate.
The aim of a PQQ is to qualify the contractor for the works.
To make the PQQ effective and consistent the questions should have a method of scoring contractors of the requirement of the contract. This allows for consistency and not subjective scoring.
To reduce the preliminary enquiry phase, it is recommended to reduce/cap the word limit on responses and only requires questions, which are relevant for the project.
Other than the PQQ found in the JCT Practice Note 2012 you could take a look at PAS 91:2013 which is publicly available.
PAS 91 (PQQ)
In the UK there is a free Publicly Available Specifications (PAS 91:2013) that aims to standardise PQQ across the industry to allow for consistency between supply chain databases to easily engage suppliers. This is a preferred & mandatory (by the OGC) question set of the public sector clients.
This allows suppliers to fill one set of questionnaire for any tender PQQ requested by clients. It allows for quicker turn around on Preliminary enquiries, as the answers are pre-written for the tender opportunities. This gives contractors the opportunity to engage with public sector clients easily.
However, the PAS does not provide project specific questions and you will require to add these in to qualify the contractors for the work.
The criteria covered under PAS 91 can be found here. This information required is summarised below:
You should also be aware that ample time is provided to the contractors to respond to the preliminary enquiry. The preliminary enquiry should include a return date and time, and an indication of how long the tender will be open.
Time limit:
Time limit for Preliminary Enquiry is 14 – 21 days for single stage tendering.
More complex tenders where design is involved would require a longer period.
OJEU – generally within 37 days
Stage 3 – Issuing the tenders
After the PQQ and interest have been received, the project team analysis the information to short-list the contractors. Where contractors have not been shortlisted, they should be informed as soon as possible. It is recommended to have at least 3–6 tenderers for the tender phase and preferably 3 for design and build procurement routes.
Documents produced
For the invitation to tender there are a number of documents that needs to be issued and it can be summarised in 2 broad groups (these two groups are my own and you’d have to refer:
Tender information – This is the Invitation to tender letter, form of tender, instructions to tenderers (how you’ll process, assess, communicate, qualify the tender for contract award.)
Contract information (This includes the drawings, pricing documents, programme, employer’s requirements, project’s information, etc. Think of this group of documents as to what would be required to put the contract together and would be the basis of the price.) Most importantly the pricing document – This details out how you want the contractor to price the work. It is determined by the level of information you have to allow for pricing. (E.g. BOQ, Approx. BOQ, schedule of rates, activity schedule, etc…. – we’ll discuss this in a lot more detail in another entry)
Tender information
For the tender information we should include the covering letter, which is the invitation to tender itself. I have drafted a list of document for the Tender information below:
Invitation to tender
Form of tender – The formal submission front sheet confirming that the contractor has understood the full scope, provided the Tender sum, the instruction to tenderers, and the programme duration (an example of this can be found in the JCT practice note). This should also include the criteria for selection of the contractor.
The invitation to tender letter include the following details:
A register of documents enclosed
This should also include a project information schedule document, which details out the location of the project (Which was previously submitted in the preliminary enquiry). Also including any potential start and completion dates.
The deadline of the return of the tender
The return address (and any transmittal instructions)
The contact details and templates to raise queries regarding the tender.
The criteria for award (can be: best value, weighting calculation or other criteria)
The type of pricing document (BOQ, activity schedule, schedule of rates, etc.)
The deliverables (list of documents) required for the full submission of their tender. (This can include the contractor’s proposal, specifications, or any other criteria required by the project).
Contract information
The contract information includes all the details that the contractor will require assess the scope, risk and extent of the works to allow them to price.
Think of it as all the information/components required in a contract to allow you to base your price on. You would have the form of contract, amendments to the contract, payment procedure, drawings, etc.
A more detail list of the document is listed below:
Drawings
Bill of Quantity (or other pricing documents)
Specifications
Work schedules/ Programmes
Employer’s requirements
On submission of a hard copy you should issue the above document: * Two copies of the BOQ, * Two envelops (with the return address, unique reference without the name of the contractor bidding for the works.) * 1) for the form of tender (and where applicable non-price criteria) * 2) for the pricing documents (optional – this can be submitted on request)
Quality
The reason why the form of tender & the non-price criteria is separated from the pricing documents is so that a review and analysis is based on the criteria for selection. Going outside of the criteria for selection would create unfair and uncontrolled selection. We’ll discuss the analysis of the tender in more detail in the next stage.
For public procurement there is a quality criteria which is detailed in BS 8534:2011, BS ISO 10845–2:2011, BS ISO 10845–1:2010. This quality criterion is based on best value. This includes:
Quality
Price
Technical merit
Aesthetic
Functional
Environmental Characteristics
Running costs
Cost effectiveness
Maintenance
Technical assistance
Period required for completion
I’ve discuss the PAS 91 above, you can find more information about this here
Time
During the tender phase you should provide an adequate tender period to allow the contractors enough time to produce the prices (or contractor’s proposal on design & build).
The practice note recommends the following tender period for the different routes:
Minimum of 28 days for single stage tenders
Public procurement up to 40 days
Design and build – 3 to 4 months (may be longer depending on complexity and the amount of work required)
Stage 4 – Tender process
Once the invitation to tender and all the associated documents have been issued to the short listed subcontractors the tender process starts. During this, stage the contractors will analyse the tender document to price and prepare any other deliverables required for the submission.
While going through the tender documents the contractors may have questions or requesting more information regarding the tender. This will need to be dealt with correctly. And as part of your tender information we previously discussed we should have detailed how questions will be dealt with.
The common types of issues that needs to be dealt with are listed below:
Questions
Additional information (addendums to the tender)
Site Visit & Mid-tender interviews
Tender withdrawals
Questions
For any questions that the contractor issues, to us we would need to respond to all the contractors. This is so that no one has an unfair advantage and they are all working on the same information to allow for a competitive tender. (Note: When responding the contractor’s name is not identified.).
Additional information
It may sometime be apparent that there is a need to issue additional information that was missed out, that was intended to be issued during the tender, or has been requested by one of the contractors. These are called tender addendums.
When issued, it must be issued to all contractors at the same time and you may potentially increase the tender period to account for the additional information.
Site visits & mid tender interviews
On certain types of complex projects, mid tender interviews & site visits would be undertaken by the client and they need to be dealt with correctly and with confidentiality. The mid tender interviewed and site visit must be highlighted in the invitation to tender.
The guidance note doesn’t cover this but on one of my previous projects I invited the contractors for a site visit because the information we had at hand was inadequate to allow them to tender and see the extent of the works. A site visit was required. I provided a list of dates and time for the contractors to attend the site visit, and it was booked on a first come, first served basis.
To keep the site visit fair all questions & answers were written down for issue to all parties.
Tender withdrawal
Sometimes the contractor might wish to withdraw from the tender because of workload or after having reviewed the tender information they believe they might not be suitable for the works.
Document produced
The document issued at this stage comes from the contractor to us before the deadline. The contractor will need to include all the deliverables required as part of the submission which would include the price, the CPD, health and safety records, or any other documents requested as part of the ITT.
An example list of documents issued:
Priced document
Proposed programme
Contractor’s design portion or contractor’s proposal
Health and safety records
Drawings/Concept design
Technical proposal
Org chart
Time
There are 2 deadlines you will need to be aware in this stage.
Questions deadline As part of the tender process we allow tenderers to issue questions to us where we will have to respond to. However, it would be recommended to stop all questions a couple of days prior to the submission deadline so that you do not get into a situation where the information/answer you’d respond with will affect the submission.
Tender submission deadline This is quite obvious; this is the deadline for the submission of the tenders and all required deliverables to you.
Stage 5 – Opening & analysing
Upon receipt of the tender you should place them in a secured place (and do not open them until all tenders are returned). Where the submissions are late you should return them back to tenderer (unopened).
The RICS tendering guidance note advises that late submission for public tenders should not be considered, and for private client we should advise the client of the late submission and if they would like to use them you should seek a written confirmation.
Before opening the tender submission you will need to have a qualified construction professional as a witness and any other members of the team. We should not be opening these without the presence of witnesses.
A tender opening form is filled in when opening the tender. This is a simple tabulated form where you will insert all the contractor’s name, submitted price, programmed completion, and rank. (Basically the general information on the form of tender)
An example of the table can be found in appendix A of the RICS tendering Guidance Note.
Reviewing the tender
All the tenders must be reviewed thoroughly so that you are comparing like for like. The first step is to identify any errors on the pricing document and other deliverables required.
Checks undertaken:
Submission of the tender has been completed as requested in the ITT
Calculation checks
Programme date errors
Check for conflicts of interest
There are two ways to deal with errors found when undertaking the calculation checks and you must state in your ITT how you are going to deal with errors.
Accept error or withdraw Where we find an error in their prices we inform the tenderer of the error and give them an option to accept the error (this means not amending the submitted price) or withdraw.
Note: This goes against the partnering procurement route and the GN advises not
Accept error or amend Where we find an error in their prices we inform the tenderer of the error and give them an option to accept the error (this means not amending the submitted price) or amend the error to then review their prices against the other contractors. In the event that the amendments affects the price that the first tenderer is no longer the most competitive then the second best price is selected to for review.
Clarification
Care must be taken when reviewing the priced document and that all queries are brought to the attention of the tenderer for clarification. This does not mean the tenderer is provided an opportunity to resubmit their tender this is only for clarification.
Equalisation & normalisation process
I will cover this once I get more information from my peers, as the resources I am using are slightly unclear on this.
Tender report
Once the entire tender is analysed you will need to produce a tender report which highlights the selection of the procurement route and tender strategy used for the tender.
You will need to highlight and include the following:
Purpose of the tender & work scope
Procurement & tender strategy
Short listing process & result
Tender information & contract information (include form of contract used)
Tender timeline (issue of tender, tender return, anticipate tender award)
Results from the Tender opening
Brief summary of each contractor’s submission and proposal
You then issue the tender report to your client for review and approval. On receipt of the confirmation you will need to notify the decision to all the contractors.
Documents produced
The document produced at this stage is the:
Tender opening form
Tender report
Time Factor
There are not set deadline that I could find in the RICS tendering strategy GN or the JCT practice note except for how long the tender submission is open for. Some other time consideration needs to be taken during this stage:
The more tender received the longer it will take to review and appoint a contractor. Use the recommended 3–6 from the JCT practice note.
The actual project start and end date needs to be considered to ensure that adequate tender analysis is undertaken. Therefore, the tender strategy and procurement route must be carefully considered.
Summary
What we have learnt in this entry is the 5 stages/steps of tendering. This will give you a general introduction to tendering and the resources you need to read into. Even though this article is over 4500 words it is still not complete. I have to cover a few more topics and summarise this entry into something that can be easily reviewed for study. If there are any errors I would appreciate if you could reply to this post with the errors.
Just to gear you up for the next few entries I will lay some basic Models to help you comprehend the information in a much structure way. The first model will be rights and obligations in the contract. This is a very basic model to “think about” when reading contracts. Models, in general, will give you a way to breakdown and structure information that you process. For example, when I wrote about procurement a couple of months ago I provided you the RIBA plan of work as a Model to introduce you to procurement. It makes it easier to process as you can see a bigger picture
In this entry, I will cover a very basic model that will help you understand rights and obligations in contracts and contractual mechanisms (novation, assignment, collateral warranties, etc..) much better.
A contract is an agreement between the named parties. The contract will, of course, have many terms implied and expressed. Most clauses will have descriptive terms, but you will notice that the “actionable” clauses are split in two; rights & obligations. If you start to look out for these when reading contracts, it’ll give you a better structure to comprehend and apply the terms. This is something I’ve picked up when reading contracts.
I won’t go into the finest detail of what they are but think about it this way; a right is giving you permission to do something, but you’re not obligated to do it and if you don’t, you miss out on something. An obligation is something that you or someone else must do and if it is not undertaken it becomes a breach.
Rights
A point to consider with rights is that if you don’t use them, you lose them. For example, if you are a subcontractor and you have an expressed right to suspend your works by issuing a seven-day notice under the housing grants etc… act for none payment and walk off site – you are now in breach. Another example is if you have the expressed right to raise a variation request within 21 days of identifying the event, and you don’t raise it you lose the right to claim money for it.
A good way to spot clauses giving your “rights” is to look out for keywords such as “may” or “could”. This is not an obligatory clause and gives the parties to the contract a choice of taking that action.
Obligation
For obligation clauses; you “must” perform the action and failing to undertake it will result in a breach of the contract. For example; a contractor is obligated to deliver a project on a specific date agreed in the contract. If the contractor fails to deliver the works by the date, they are in breach, and they are liable for any damages suffered by the client. Of course, you can limit it by having a Liquidated Ascertained Damage term agreed in the contract, but if nothing is limiting the damages, you’re fully liable for the cost.
The breach will allow the other party to set off the cost and may potentially not pay you for that particular work.
Another example is where the terms state that the contractor must comply with any instruction of the contract administrator. This means that the contractor must comply with the instruction, failing will result in a breach.
With obligations, the performance under the contract must be undertaken. You can spot these by looking at keywords such as “must” or “comply”.
Try it out
Maybe next time when you read a contract try to spot the clauses giving right or obligations on a party. Once you spot them, try to categorise it and see who the rights and obligations belong to. This will make your life easier when you are trying to understand contracts.
Did you enjoy this? Please let me know in the comments. I’d also love to hear what you guys think about my entries.