Bidding in the Cleaning Sector
Many companies consider the benefits of a Bid Manager for the cleaning sector, for a few good reasons. The cleaning sector is vast, covering such areas as:
- Private / Domestic
- Commercial
- Corporate
- Education
- Culture and Heritage Sites
- Hospitality
- Industrial
- Local Government
10 years ago the UK recession hit, causing a decline in the domestic cleaning market as many homes sought ways to reduce their suddenly constrained budgets. While other sectors also saw budget issues, calls for outsourced cleaning contracts saw a sharp rise in the education, hospitality and local government sectors. The reason for this is quite simple; it can often be more cost effective for companies and publicly owned establishments to outsource their cleaning requirements for a fixed contract price that will get them a fully managed service than to continue to accommodate the internal costs of running a cleaning, or facilities management, department.
There is no doubt, this change in attitude has created a deluge of opportunities for cleaning companies in the UK, with cleaning tenders being put out on a daily basis, all year round. However, with the huge amount of opportunities comes fierce competition. There are many large, successful cleaning companies with a full roster of cleaning contracts, who tend to dominate the top end of the market with contract values of £1M+.
However, for SME cleaning companies, tendering for contracts with an annual value of £0 – 150,000 can be an excellent way of diversifying their client portfolio, increasing their turnover and building their reputation. For this reason, many cleaning companies look for a bid consultant for their cleaning tenders, who can give them the best shot at managing their tender opportunities.
What does it take to succeed in the cleaning sector?
Broadly speaking, tendering in the cleaning sector is not all that different from tendering for anything else in public procurement. There is usually an SQ stage, followed by shortlisting (hopefully) to ITT and perhaps then a presentation. Tenders are evaluated using the MEAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender) method, which means that they will put a certain percentage of the overall evaluation on price, and a certain percentage on quality (e.g. a tender might be evaluated as 60% price and 40% quality).
The combined score from these two weightings will give the overall score and the company with the best overall score should then be awarded the contract. If you are interested in learning more about the evaluation process, you can see more on our free e-learning facility, Tender VLE.
So far, so simple. In this way, tendering in the cleaning sector is not that different from any other kind of public procurement tendering. However, there are definitely things that are deemed as highly important by bid managers in the cleaning sector, which it pays to be aware of, such as:
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Supply chain and sustainable procurement
Supply chains exist in all industries, but for the cleaning sector they are often extensive. Buyers are keen to see evidence in your cleaning tender responses that your company have measures in place to ensure that your supply chain is ethical, environmentally friendly and sustainable. Remember that it is not enough to simply state that you have a procedure; you have to provide the evidence. Do you have a policy that covers this? If so, attach as an Appendix if possible. Can you provide a case study that shows how you have improved or monitored your supply chain in the past? The more evidence you can supply, the better.
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Eco-friendly products
This is somewhat related to your supply chain. The cleaning sector uses a huge amount of chemical cleaning products, which is unavoidable. Being able to demonstrate to the Buyer that you source eco-friendly (non-toxic) cleaning products will stand you in good stead, especially if you couple it with an explanation of how your use of eco-friendly products feeds into your overarching environmental policy. ECOLOGO, EU Ecolabel, Global GreenTag Certified, Green Seal and Green Tick are all excellent ecolabels/certifications to have attributed to your cleaning products and materials.
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Waste reduction
The emphasis on environmental awareness is strong in public procurement for the cleaning sector! As any good bid manager for cleaning tenders will be able to tell you, showing that your company has a thriving, adaptive environmental policy is really vital to scoring well in the quality section of your tender submissions.
As the cleaning sector generates so much waste (through packaging, consumables, product waste, rubbish disposal and so on) it is imperative that you show the Buyer that you are taking measures you reduce your carbon footprint through waste reduction. A realistic way of doing this is by putting in place a realistic recycling scheme, working with your supply chain to reduce packaging and showing how you work with existing clients to promote recycling and reduce waste to landfill. Getting your Environmental Management System accredited to ISO 14001 would be a huge boost to your tendering efforts.
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Staff benefits
Good treatment of staff is imperative to all businesses, but when it comes to the cleaning sector you can really score well by showing a Buyer that you don’t just meet the bare minimum employment standards. Let us be honest; cleaning has a bad reputation for paying minimum wage, often zero-hour contracts, for what is widely considered to be a ‘low-skill’ job role.
However, as anybody who has ever worked a cleaning job can tell you, this is far from the case. Cleaning is a physically demanding role that requires staff to observe Health and Safety legislation, display time management skills and produce a high-quality service that benefits multiple end-users.
Bid managers for cleaning tenders often advise clients that showcasing how you recognise cleaning staff in questions concerning staff management, and how you give them a better-than-average employment package, can be the difference between scoring a ‘good’ mark and an ‘excellent’ mark.
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Quality management
When tendering you will usually be asked to explain what your quality management system is. In short, you are being asked to explain what your internal procedure is for making sure that the service you are delivering is monitored, audited and maintained to a suitably high standard. Our internal bid management team specialise in the cleaning sector and highly recommend attaining an accreditation such as ISO 9001, which will show Buyers that you can be trusted to uphold quality standards on their premises / site.
So, why do I need a Bid Manager for cleaning?
There are many reasons why a cleaning company might feel that sourcing an external bid writer is the right move for them, such as:
- Procurement know-how. The procurement process can be obscure even to those who work within it every day. Having a specialist bid manager can smooth the tendering process significantly, ensuring that your tendering efforts are given the optimum chance to succeed.
- Cleaning sector tendering knowledge. Many bid managers have their own specialisms or general areas that they have a lot of industry knowledge for. One of our internal bid writers has extensive, hands-on experience of the cleaning sector, as well as experience of writing winning tenders. Bid managers like this can bring significant insight to tenders for a cleaning company and are often able to offer insights and advice they themselves have gained through sector-specific experience.
For more information on how we could help you improve your tendering efforts in the cleaning sector, contact us or read more about the benefits of a Bid Consultant.
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