Dear Sirs… some lessons for making procurement more human and inclusive
When Common started out six years ago we mostly got wind of work through our network. The bid processes we went through to win work were usually quite simple to follow. We didn’t win everything we bid for, but the processes felt fair and not too arduous on the supplier or buyer.
As we’ve grown we decided to try to bid for work through a few frameworks and published bids. Sometimes because clients have encouraged us to do so. It’s not been the best of experiences. It has taken huge amounts of time and energy from the team, often on a lot of form filling rather than focusing on how we can help an organisation achieve the impacts and outcomes it wants to.
What we’ve been struck by is how badly designed these procurement processes are for getting the best out of agencies and the bid process. Especially if you’re a small team like us with no accounts or admin team. So for the moment we will be pausing on bidding for jobs with procurement processes that are poorly designed.
As we hang up our hat on these types of bids we wanted to share some reflections and lessons learned on the process from a small supplier perspective. So here goes… a lot of this will be quite critical of the process as on balance our experience has been quite poor, but we also wanted to share some of the things we’ve seen that work well — the ‘bright spots’ which should be considered when designing briefs and procurement processes.
Make briefs and appendices more focussed
This morning I read a brief that had 55 pages of preamble before getting to the brief, which was 3 pages. We also recently bid on a piece of work where the main brief document was 80 pages long. Briefs nearly always include so much extra context and information that we spend our first few days with a brief sifting through pages and pages of documentation, often with lengthy and multiple appendices, often with contradictory guidance. Sometimes information may be needed but often it feels like they’re included ‘just in case’ or haven’t been tailored to the problem you’re trying to solve or skills you’re buying.
Your long briefs make it hard for us to respond — I’m sure this means that clients get lower quality and less easy to read responses.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- Start with a really clear articulation of the impact or outcome you want to achieve
- A list or short summary of work you’ve already done / what you know
- Include a clickable index to help navigate the bid — this is hugely helpful when we want to refer back to something
Make time for dialogue
We love chatting about the brief with clients — it is often when we start to get a sense of what your priorities and challenges are and discuss some of the risks that might need to be considered. But we have gone through a number of bid processes where there is no opportunity to speak to anyone about the brief in the interest of a ‘fair’ process. Written Q&As are not sufficient for complex social impact briefs. Make time for us to speak to you and understand your needs.
If you are going to have a Q&A (written or otherwise) make sure you give people the time to adapt their response based on when they receive the responses — otherwise the process seems tokenistic.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- A number of bookable Q&A sessions
- An opportunity to ask questions on a short call
- An opportunity to give feedback on the brief before you finalise it
- Chemistry meetings to decide who to invite to bid
- Tell us if there’s already a partner you’re working with
Simplify response requirements
Too often response requirements become really restrictive by requiring very fixed questions and answers into a proposal template. We almost always find this a really painful and limiting process. By creating a template you remove our ability to respond in a more tailored and personal way to your brief. Then there’s the issue of word and page limits — which take so much time and effort to fit with. Response requirements are often just as painstaking for a £50K as a £750K budget.
I think asking for a short or detailed proposal with some key information requirements should be sufficient. If you write a well focused brief you should get focussed proposals back.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- A very simple exercise to shortlist agencies you want to pitch
- If you must provide a word / page count include it as a suggestion but don’t limit it
- Provide a checklist of things you want included but leave it to the supplier to decide how to cover this and structure their pitch story
- Include the option to submit video or audio format proposals
Reduce box ticking
The paperwork involved is unreal in a lot of these processes. Signing template contracts, providing company details, client reference contact details, questionnaires. All requiring downloading, editing, saving, and uploading. I doubt these are reviewed most of the time. Most of the time they have already been provided when we signed up to the main framework. Sometimes we are asked for them again if we win.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- Only collect essential information at proposal stage
- Make it easy Q&A if you have any detailed requirements (e.g. Are you VAT registered — Y/N) and collect detailed information only if successful (e.g. actual VAT number)
- Don’t ask for information twice — eg all the information provided for registering on a procurement framework
- Create a form / survey link to make it easy to collect this information
- Keep this information on file so if companies have already provided it they don’t have to do it every time
- Don’t require agencies to review and sign contracts or other documents in advance or make this process radically simpler.
Make it inclusive
We recently received a rejection letter addressed “Dear Sirs”, to our mostly female team, from a client we had built a really good relationship with working on inclusion and accessibility. It was gutting, especially as we knew the company had higher aspirations. They are not alone — I recently had to sign a load of pre-engagement appendices all addressed “Dear Sirs”. This is not the only way that exclusion can happen.
Briefs are often issued with a two or three week response time frame. Short time frames can make it incredibly hard for members of our team who work part time or have caring responsibilities to get involved. Short time frames also limit our ability to properly co-design our proposals with community members or living/lived experience consultants.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- Following simplified pitch processes outlined above
- Using gender neutral language
- Longer time-frames from issuing brief to response (6 weeks minimum)
- Be open to increasing time frames if an agency makes a good case for it
- Use people’s or team names when delivering news
- If you’ve got a relationship with an agency you can be more personal — pick up the phone and chat through feedback
Deal with delays and timing of messages better
Tender review processes often take longer than you expect. Often because of “a high volume of responses”. Waiting for an outcome can be stressful for the team especially if the communication is opaque and not timely. Ideally be more realistic from the start so you can over rather than under-deliver on response time frames.
If you are running late, be honest about what’s holding up the process. Vague or general comments add to the team’s stress.
Also think about when you will let people know the outcome — it’s a small thing but try to avoid letting the team know late on a Friday when they have to process the news (good or bad) in non work time.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- When it’s a fair exchange — enough time on both sides
- Being radically transparent in what’s holding things up and picking up the phone
- Announcements that respect people’s work/life boundaries
Give feedback that helps us learn
We receive a really wide range of feedback on our proposals. From the generic — “We had a lot of high quality bids” which we can’t learn from, to some really useful feedback “the winning bid was… Your response was strong in… but weaker on…”. Transparent and actionable feedback makes it easy for us to learn from. Give feedback when we win too, learning why we won is just as important as learning why we lost.
Things we’ve seen that work well:
- Detailed feedback on the winning bid vs losing bids
- Be specific / actionable in your feedback “you could have strengthened your bid by…”
- Make it human — have a conversation.
So what? It matters because of exclusion
These processes make procurement an incredible time sap and one that only big businesses with large support teams can repeatedly engage in. They mean that you ultimately exclude lots of smaller, more agile organisations who might actually be a better fit for the work but opt out because of the time (and cost) the procurement takes. There’s even a big difference between a SME with a team of 50 and a SME that’s a team of 5. Design your procurement processes to include everyone who you’d like to work with.
Having spoken to a range of friends, colleagues, fellow freelancers and clients about the procurement process I know we’re not alone with these frustrations. There needs to be space for more honest feedback and collaboration on procurement and attempts to improve it. Ultimately buyers need to become more open to feedback on the procurement process rather than designing it as a set of obstacles that organisations have to overcome.
How to build better procurement practices?
Our ideas for some quick wins…
- Focus the brief — a really well written and short brief is much much more useful than an 80 pager
- Ask for less up front, simplify response requirements, provide a checklist and don’t restrict the format too much
- Space to debate and rethink the bid through the process — be open to challenge
- Give time for more collaborative and inclusive responses
- Genuinely helpful feedback — what would an agency need to have done to have won it?
What next for Common?
We are taking a break from these types of tenders and frameworks, they take days and days of our team’s time and do not feel worth the time and focus required. They can be deeply dispiriting processes — we know this is true not just for our team but also for the client side reviewers.
Want some help to create a more human and inclusive procurement process? Please get in touch!
