Gone are the days for flipping through pages of newspapers to look for tender in Nepal. Now say hello to Rolling Tender, one of the modules of Rolling Nexus - Nepal's first professional networking website.
At Rolling Tender you can find all the online tender notice of projects of your choice to bid on. But first let's start by breaking down tender, its types and how to procure it.
A tender is an invitation from the owner or a department to qualified contractors to bid on a project that needs to be completed under the stated budget within a finite deadline.
The owner details the specifications of the project and makes the final decision regarding which contractor's bid to accept on the grounds of comparative price and how well bids match up to the mentioned requirements.
Open tender allows anyone to submit a tender to supply goods or services necessary. Usually, there will be advertisements/tender notice placed offering an equal opportunity to any organization to submit a tender.
It is the main tendering procedure employed by both the private and government sector. An open tender is most common in the construction and engineering industry.
Open tendering offers the highest competition and has the benefit of letting new or emerging suppliers try to secure work.
However, some of the suppliers from the large numbers whose interest is drawn towards the project can be completely unfitting for the contract and it can result in a waste of time, money, and effort.
Selective tendering only allows suppliers to submit tenders by invitation. A pre-selected list of potential suppliers is fixed that is known by their track record to be fit for a contract given its size, nature, and intricacies.
Selective tendering can give clients the greater assurance that their requirements will be fulfilled and should lessen the wasted effort that can be involved in open tendering.
Consultants or qualified clients may maintain ‘approved' lists of prospective suppliers and then regularly review performance to evaluate whether suppliers should remain on the list.
And, selective tendering can be exclusionary to smaller suppliers and those who are trying to establish themselves in the market.
Negotiated tendering is when the client approaches a single supplier based on their track-record or a previous relationship and the terms of the contract are then negotiated. Hence, there is no competitive factor associated here.
Negotiating with the same team even for new contracts can reduce the costs of tendering and allow early contractor involvement.
This type of tendering can result in better communication flow because the contractors are part of the project from a very initial phase.
Single-stage tendering is used when all the information required estimating an accurate price is available once tendering starts.
An invitation/tender notice is distributed to possible suppliers, tenders are arranged and returned, a chosen tenderer is selected and following negotiations, they may be hired.
Two-stage tendering is used to allow early selection of a supplier, before the completion of all the information required to permit them to propose a fixed price.
In the first phase, a limited appointment is agreed to allow work to begin and in the second phase, a fixed price is negotiated for the contract.
Tender procurement is a process of applying for contracts through the completion of one or more questionnaires. Many companies depend on the tender process as their main means to obtain contracts.
The procedure is an organized one, to be reasonable and transparent; including a rigorous selection method, expressions of interest from bidders, to the request for tender and the assessment process.
Each tender process is different depending on the contract in question and how the buyer needs to evaluate the bidder.
Public sector contracts of over thousands of rupees of values are published in Rolling tender, one of the components of rolling nexus. This allows businesses to look for online tender notices that apply to them, and then complete the relevant PQQ and or tender.
When a company or contractor finds a tender notice applicable to them on rolling tender, they can express their interest. This allows them to complete the first stage of the application, known as the pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ).
PQQ is the very first stage of bidding. This document is made to eliminate the companies from the process. It is important to make sure that your bid is solid so that you are selected and get an invitation to tender (IIT).
If you are successful at the PQQ stage you are then invited to tender (the final stage of the process). Even though similar to PQQ, this document is much tougher and your submission needs to be even stronger to get ahead.
Once the tender is submitted, it will be evaluated by the contracting specialist. If your bid is successful you will then be awarded the contract and can start working.
Irrespective of whether or not your company is successful at PQQ or IIT stage it is important to request feedback. This allows your company to recognize its strengths and weaknesses so that there can be improvements while bidding in the future.
Tendering is an invitation for a price bid with procedures and details through newspapers or websites to the eligible contractors.
Here, sometimes, the buyer doesn't know who the suppliers might be, so they circulate tender notice online or in newspapers to get as much attention as they can.
Whereas, bidding is the submission of offer/tender over tender documents or simply submission of eligible criterion as pre-qualification.
It is done in response to a request or invitation to tender. The ‘bid' will then be assessed against a set of standards that are mentioned in the invitation to tender.
Before bidding on a project, you need to make sure that you can make a profit off of it. It can be done by calculating labor and equipment costs so that the entire costs of the job can be estimated.
And when calculating labor costs, including all the taxes, insurances, tools and equipment, and other additional benefits that you may provide to your employees.
It's also important to consider other factors such as location, contract requirements system of construction, and so on after you have determined the cost for the completion of the project.
This will help in deciding whether the work will be profitable should you be awarded the contract.
Once the money you can make from the project is measured now you can focus to confirm that your company is efficient for the job. It's better to check if there are any unfinished projects before starting a new one.
This is because once the new project begins it is going to require manpower, equipment, staff, and other resources. On top of that, there is also a responsibility to complete the work within an agreed-upon deadline.
Your company should have a sufficient cash flow to complete the project leaving no room imposing risks on other commitments. Make sure you know your limits and don't sign up if the work requirements exceed your capacity.
Before submitting for a bid it would be wise to go through all the records of your previous bids, both the ones you won and lost. Analyzing your earlier work will give you a clear picture of what caused you to lose and all the things that you were lacking.
Do not hesitate to ask your clients for feedback after either you win or lose. Even if you win, you should evaluate the project to see if it was your performance or team management that gave you the win.
There are always areas where you can improve on and identifying those before going for a new bid is not a good idea.
Is the project you are considering to bid compatible with the long term goals of your company? It is crucial to go after the project that aligns with the company's strategies.
So if you plan to grow your business then find projects that can help you achieve that. Also, should new markets or location be your priority then it's better to bid on projects that can lead you towards the path of expansion.
Projects can help you accomplish the company's goals which is why there needs to be careful planning while submitting for a bid.
Another thing to consider before jumping on to bid would be to cautiously examine all the possible threats that could occur while working on the project.
It's better to be safe than sorry. You can rely on the analysis from the historical data and based on that you can review bidding documents, plans, and conditions for the projects.
Highlight the risks, taking into account how much time, money, and work each risk will require for effective management. If there are high numbers of risks then it might be a good idea to back away from the project.
Other aspects to consider while making the decision contains project location, duration, size and scope, competition, client, and designer.
Rolling Tender is the procurement management system for all types of business requirements in Nepal. All the interested suppliers and businesses in the Nepali market can connect on this platform for doing their business together.
The system in rolling tender enables suppliers and clients to curb many market challenges and synchronize it with a specialized procurement management system.
Rolling Tender in Nepal is your getaway to discovering hundreds online tender notices. As a module, it can be quickly set up through a website with secure and genuine users.
It saves time for publication and distribution of tender documents as well. It has a full functioning, control, and responsive system for both suppliers and purchases.
So for online tender notices in Nepal, you can visit rolling tender, and select for tenders of your choice, bid on it, and win contract awards.