|
Case Study - Stewart Milne Construction A Service for Local Construction Companies Construction companies are not the best consumers of public sector tender notices, believing that their largely local markets can be best monitored by direct contacts. But one Scottish construction company, Stewart Milne Construction, is proving that there is a role for listing services such as Tenders Direct, especially where tenders are not issued locally, as with the MOD. Stewart Milne’s market is very specific as the business has to be within its working area (the North East of Scotland), there is an ideal size of project (at the smaller end of large construction projects) and a project has to be purely construction (no civil engineering involved). The public sector is very important to Stewart Milne and is approximately 50% of its business. “I know there are critics of the tendering process, but it does make the public sector market much more visible than the private sector and, therefore, it costs less to find projects and make contact,” explained Les Henderson, Business Development Manager. “This also means that we can spend more time concentrating on the opportunities in the private sector which are often more difficult to source.” All the tender notices end up in Les’s ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ file, with the ‘No’ file being the bigger of the two. “Having the right key words is important but inevitably you are going to get notices that aren’t quite right,” explained Les. “The important thing is that you are getting appropriate notices, business that you may not otherwise know about, and that is certainly the case with Tenders Direct. We have won quite a few tenders from notices supplied by Tenders Direct and its keeps me up to date and informed about what is happening in the public sector construction industry.” Les finds that the tendering process can be complicated. “Often too much detail is asked for at the first stage, which is something you don’t mind doing if you are short listed but it can be a waste if you miss out. The MoD in particular asks for a large amount of detail, particularly for design and build projects at the first stage of the tendering process. “It pays to simplify the process with a standard pre-qualification process, and increasingly tenders can be submitted electronically, including supporting information, drawings & visuals. This can save time and money. “Clearly it is worth it or we wouldn’t bother.” Once a MOD tender is submitted no direct communication can be entered into and in some instances it can take up three months or more before the company gets a meaningful response. “The feedback is very formal and if a contract is won there are more forms, etc. to complete, but you don’t mind doing this knowing you’ve won the business,” said Les. “We might have specific requirements and be locally focussed, but Tenders Direct nonetheless provides an invaluable service.” |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
