Stop waiting for opportunities to find you!

9 Jul

Most businesses find out about a public sector opportunity when it goes live on the portal. They see the contract notice, check the deadline, and decide whether to go for it.

The problem with that approach isn't that it never works - sometimes it does. It's that by the time a contract notice is published, the best prepared bidders already have a head start. They know it's coming and have been getting ready. And you're starting from scratch with a deadline looming (probably around 30 days).

Building an opportunity pipeline changes that completely and in my view is an essential part of the bid readiness work you need to do to win consistently.

The further ahead you look, the better

Ideally you want to be looking not just weeks or months but years ahead.

That sounds ambitious but it's not as complicated as it sounds. If you know a significant framework is coming up in two years, you have time to invest to get yourself in the best position to win - nurturing relationships, getting the right processes in place, gaining relevant certifications, building your evidence base, resourcing up, bringing in external support if you need it. What that looks like will depend on lots of internal and external factors. But the key thing is - you're making strategic rather than reactive decision - with future growth in mind.

Of course, there is a risk that future procurement might not go ahead in three years time, as the market shifts or the needs of the buyer evolve. But if you know about it, you can monitor and review over that time and adjust your srategy as needed. Maybe the risk of not being ready outweighs the risk of allocating time and resource to something that never happens - only you can decide this for your own business.

Where to find useful information

The public sector contract advertising portals are the obvious starting point. In Scotland that's Public Contracts Scotland. In England, Find a Tender covers higher value contracts and Contracts Finder picks up smaller opportunities from £10k upwards, so which one you need depends on the value of what you're looking for. There's also Sell2Wales for Wales and eTendersNI for Northern Ireland. I predominantly work within Scotland but many of my clients are looking at opportunities across the wider UK so it's worth knowing where to look in each region. I've linked to all of them at the end of this article.

When we think of these portals, we generally think about live contract notices, telling us there is something we can bid for right now. But contract notices are only part of the picture.

Buyers can also publish advance notices at various stages before a procurement goes live. These might signal that something is coming in the future, invite the market to engage via a questionnaire or supplier event, or share early information about what's being planned. This is where you can get on a buyer's radar before the competition starts, and sometimes contribute to shaping what they eventually go to market with.

There are also other notice types worth being aware of, including innovation notices where buyers are actively looking for new or emerging solutions. These are worth watching if you're in a new or emerging sector or developing new innovative solutions.

Contract award notices are one of the most underused sources of intelligence. When a contract is awarded you can often find out who won, the contract value, how many suppliers bid, and what the evaluation criteria looked like. You can also often find out when that contract will end, which tells you roughly when it's likely to be retendered if its something that will be needed again. Over time this builds a really useful picture of who's winning in your space, what buyers are prioritising, and how their approach is shifting as well as when procurement activity is likely to happen.

Beyond the portals

Beyond the portals themselves, there are other places worth looking. Many public bodies publish procurement strategies that include their forward pipeline, giving you a view of what they're planning to buy over the coming years. Larger public bodies are often required to publish this information, and even where it's not mandatory some do it voluntarily. If you have a target buyer in mind, it's worth checking whether they've published anything like this.

Policy and funding announcements can also act as early signals. A new funding stream, a policy commitment, a change in legislation, these things often lead to procurement activity further down the line. Staying close to what's happening in your sector means you can sometimes see what's coming before it's formally announced.

What to do with the intelligence

The intelligence is only useful if you act on it.

Use it to understand what's coming and when. Use it to get a sense of who's currently winning in your space and what buyers in your sector seem to be prioritising. And then ask yourself honestly, are you ready for those opportunities? And if not, what needs to change before they become a live bid with 30 days to respond?

That might mean investing in a certification. It might mean building your evidence base over the next twelve months. It might mean bringing in support to help you prepare properly. It might just mean getting your compliance documents in order (which is exactly what the next article is about).

Everything I share in this series is based on my own experience on both the buyer and the bidder side. I'd love to hear your views too. If something resonates, or if you see it differently, tell me in the comments.

I'm Mandy, founder of Millar Tender Solutions. I help growth-focussed businesses win public sector contracts, drawing on 20+ years of experience on the buyer side. I'm also an associate trainer with Supplier Development Programme Scotland and deliver bid readiness support through a number of Business Gateway Expert Help frameworks. If you want to talk about where your business is on its bid readiness journey, drop me a message.