Help! I’ve been asked to do a government tender!
A government tender hits your desk, what do you do next? How do you best leverage relationships and engagements to help position for a competitive tender? Neil shares some advice.
By Neil Pharaoh
A government tender hits your desk - what do you do next? How do you best leverage relationships and engagements to help position for a competitive tender?
You have been invited by a policy department to complete a tender, so you put your best foot forward and get your team together to compile what you think is a great document.
It is sent into the unknown and a few months later you hear back, somewhat deflated, that you were unsuccessful. In frustration, you wonder why you were asked if there was to be no likelihood of winning, and your feedback from the department is slim on the ground – but maybe you needed to re-wind and look back over the time leading up to the tender to discover what went wrong.
The above story is something I have heard many times in relation to government tenders, even when you are invited, so let’s put some reasons why you weren’t successful on the table, and discuss a couple of simple ways you can get ahead of the curve.
Firstly, the Department (or agency) involved needs to “look” like due process is followed. They may have their preferred party in mind, or the person they want was previously a public servant, but is now in the revolving door of a big consulting firm, so their network puts them ahead of the curve.
In both circumstances, the process needs to look legitimate from the government perspective. For the agency or department, there is not much extra work, if any, and no skin off their back if you don’t get it. Remember, sometimes these outcomes are already decided, but perception management means we go through the motions.
Second, with our clients we spend a lot of timing working through the concept of five government stakeholders (Executive/Shadows, Members of Parliament, Policy Departments, Central Agencies and the Political Parties) – for each decision, even small ones, often up to 100 people will be across it, and sometimes even if the policy department (Health, Education, Science) wants an outcome, any one of those other 99 plus people can make it difficult, impossible, or potentially flip the outcome.
Mapping the journey a tender or submission makes, through caucus, cabinet, departments or beyond is a really critical process – you learn about how government works, and you also build your real stakeholder list – and identify those who can say no. Map the course of a project through government, and manage your stakeholders accordingly.
Thirdly, someone along the way is just plain shitty, and you caught the raw end of the deal. Maybe one Minister had a project going up for approval yesterday, and for whatever reason another Minister shot that one done. If the roles are reversed, it could be your project, or tender which is caught in the crossfire.
It may be fine on merit, logics and support, but you just may have got someone on ‘a bad day’. This one is easily mitigated though; if you can path the course of a decision (as per above) and if you ensure people know who you are, you greatly reduce the risk of being shot down for superfluous reasons.
Finally, you didn’t play the political game – merit is great, but as most of you who have read anything of late about sporting grants, multicultural grants, and even many infrastructure grants, you know that just because something is top of the pile when it leaves the Department, doesn’t mean it finishes that way after it is has been via the Minister’s office.
Backbenchers, electorates, margins, geography, and location are all key components in granting government money. If you can’t map to them, and show your influence within them, you are unlikely to survive the political cut – this is even more critical as we get closer to a Federal election (and Victoria and South Australian State ones) – for an easy cheat to see when they are due, visit Timeline of Australian elections.
Do not be afraid if you miss out on a tender, as it does bring you closer to the next one. Also be a little be skeptical about ‘no win, no fee arrangements’ with grant writers and consultants. I have a fairly good record working with social purpose organisations on tenders, but still feel uncomfortable doing the no win, no fee arrangements which are starting to occur in this space.
This article first appeared at Pro Bono Australia as part of Tanck's fortnightly column, Happenings on the Hill.
Tanck offers advisory services in government relations, stakeholder strategy, and communications.
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