Case study: tender submission for London highways contract

The tender in question is for an existing client; we have worked with the client for approximately 12 months on a number of highways maintenance contracts, primarily in the London region. They are currently bidding for a contract in the London Borough of Haringey for the provision of highway maintenance, minor highway improvements and street lighting.

Breakdown of the project

• The word count is just under 40,000 words, all of which is being written afresh
• 8 weeks to complete (there was an extension otherwise this would have been a shorter timescale)
• Lead bid writer at Executive Compass and their account manager: Stephen Kennett
• Contract value of £108 million over 8 years
• Several different stakeholders involved
• Main challenge: it is a multi-faceted service.

This tender is larger than our average project at nearly 40,000 words of narrative, and has required robust planning, preparation and good communication with the client from Stephen. Luckily Stephen has a good relationship with the client and a good understanding of their business, as he has been their account manager since they approached us in 2017.

Challenges

It is a large submission, but that isn’t a great challenge. The main hurdle to overcome with this project is that it is a multi-faceted service and Haringey Council are looking for reactive maintenance, repairs and planned improvements across the following different assets:

Highways

• Emergency attendance and other out of hours working for highways and street
• Priority responsive works e.g. potholes
• Footway maintenance projects
• Carriageway resurfacing projects
• Public realm improvement projects
• Parking and CPZ projects
• Sustainable drainage (SUDS)

Streetlighting

• Emergency attendance and other out of hours working
• Fault repair and management
• Night scouts
• Cleaning and cyclic maintenance
• Cyclic inspection and testing
• Maintenance or improvement projects

This has required Stephen to speak to a range of different people within the company we are working with to understand the different service areas and how each will be delivered, so he can then create a cohesive submission, giving the end client confidence that each service area is delivered to the same high standard throughout. Communication and information sourcing are key in this bid to gather all the intricate details from the company, whilst meeting the demands of the specification.

We are over 90% of the way through the writing for this tender, which is due to be submitted by 16 November, and are working closely with the client to finalise the bid. Fingers crossed for a successful outcome once evaluated in early 2019!

Bid writing support

At Executive Compass our bid writing process is the same whether we are writing 5,000 words or 40,000 words. Stephen explains in this short video how we tackle each tender and our methodology:

To discuss how we can support you to bid for your next contract contact us today.