Business Proposal Writing: How To Write the Format of Tender Section

Writing a Request for Proposal (Invitation To Tender) is hard work. After you have polished the final draft and sent it out, the next step is to wait for the proposals to come back in. If you're working on a large tender, you can sometimes expect 20,30, 50 or even hundreds of bids to arrive on your desk.

One approach to evaluate these bids quickly is to include a Format of Tender section at the end of the Request for Proposal.

Format of Tender Criteria

Remind the bidders that they must follow the Format of Tender criteria as otherwise they risk disqualification. In general, the criteria will mirror the main sections of the RFP itself.

The following section provides a suggested Format of Tender outline:

General Information

• Name

• Address

• Telephone

• Fax

• Email

Terms and Conditions

• Acceptance of the Terms and Conditions as described in the request for proposal by the bidder and third parties.

• A statement from the bidder that none of the excluding circumstances listed in section <> are applicable.

• Confirmation that the bidder understands the requirements and scope of the project

• Recommendation that the bidder should provide any other information that may be relevant to the proposal.

Proposal Manager Toolkit - Clarifications

Required Format

Proposals should respond under the headings set out in Section of the main RFP:

• Details of Tendering Company

• Details of Key Personnel

• Overview of Solution

• Understanding of requirements

o         Scalability & Performance

o         Deliverables

o         Audit Requirements

o         Testing

o         Skills Transfer

o         User Training

• Reporting Requirements

• Development Environment    

• Testing Environments

• Maintainability

• Development Support

• Project Management

• Quality Management  

  

  Communication Plan Checklist

Costs

The costs section should provide the following:

• Total Costs

• Consulting costs

• Software costs

• Training costs

• Implementation costs

• Indicative costs (e.g. hardware)

• Schedule of costs (costs associated with deliverables)

• Validity period of costs

By mandating that these criteria need to be followed, your Evaluation Team will be able to review the responses much quicker and, in turn, speed up the procurement process.