Electrical contracts come in all shapes and sizes and typically cover jobs that involve the installation, maintenance, and repair of electrical systems and equipment.
They offer a great way for you to grow your business, providing regular, predictable income and public sector services sought can include:
- Wiring and cabling for new construction or renovations
- Installation and maintenance of lighting fixtures
- Upgrades to electrical panels and circuits
- Installation of electrical appliances, such as HVAC systems and kitchen equipment
- Replacement and repair of faulty wiring and electrical components
- Establishment of electrical service for new homes or businesses
- Electrical inspections to ensure compliance with building codes and safety regulations
- Emergency repairs for power outages or other electrical failures
To begin with you need to find an electrical contract opportunity that applies to your business. All UK public sector tender opportunities, depending on their value, must be published either on the Find a Tender or Contracts Finder. You can search these databases using key words to find a tender appropriate to your business. Alternatively, you can search our Open Tenders listing which combines opportunities from both of these sources.
Once you’ve found your ideal electrical tender, you then need to look at whether you can meet the objectives and what you need to do to provide the most comprehensive response you can.
Here our team of experienced, winning tender writers share their top tips for maximising success with your electrical contract submission:
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Review the tender documentation thoroughly to understand the client's requirements, scope of work and any specific technical specifications. Be sure you can meet these before going any further.
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Understand the budget constraints and pricing requirements set by the client before pricing your bid. Look at how much weighting is given to pricing, it many cases, quality and social value could have just as much importance or even more than pricing. It’s key that your pricing is realistic yet competitive.
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Prepare a detailed work plan that outlines your project management approach, schedules and timelines for completing the work. How you plan and what your contingency plan gives credibility to your response and confidence in your ability to deliver.
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Arrange a site visit! Whilst not always necessary this can be incredibly useful and is sometimes a ‘must’ on larger projects. This will also support your responses to be specific to the location in question.
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Highlight your previous experience and expertise in completing similar electrical projects as per the client's requirements. Case studies and testimonials are crucial to demonstrate what you have done in the past and how you have delivered against the objective. Make sure you have these collated and in one place and keep them up to date, adding new ones regularly so you aren’t sharing something from 10 years ago.
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Describe your approach to safety including method statements, risk assessments and any other relevant safety documentation.
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Clearly define your roles and responsibilities within the project team including key personnel involved in the project.
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Demonstrate your committment to social value. Increasingly social value is growing in importance within public sector procurement and that will not change. It's crucial you show the steps you are taking to incorporate this in to your business; you may well find that you are doing a number of things already...do you employ locally? Do you have an apprentice? Do you source locally? Do you work with a local charity?
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Include all necessary supporting documentation such as certificates, accreditations, licenses, and references as requested. It goes without saying that you need to ensure all your documents and relevant training and accreditations are up to date (e.g. NICEIC, Gas Safe, H&S, CHAS, Safe Contractor, Constructionline etc). You will be unlikely to pass through the initial selection stage of the tender process without this.
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Ensure that your submission meets all formatting and submission requirements outlined in the tender documentation. Submission is usually through a portal and there will typically be a character or word limit – stick within this, be succinct, cut the waffle!
If you need help and support with any aspect of electrical tendering, from getting your business in shape, to finding a tender, to writing a winning response, Complete Tenders are here to help. We offer a variety of services including our tender tracker service where we search open tenders for that perfect opportunity for your business, to our tender writing services where we work with you to craft winning tender responses, to the full bid management service where we provide you with an end-to-end tendering process experience to maximise your return on investment and deliver significant growth.
