HOW TO ATTEND A TENDER OPENING (PUBLIC SECTOR)

AS YOU'RE ON THE WAY

I do not know about you guys but I find the journeying part of any process, the most monotonic. The beginning is well, a little hard but after you begins and before you end   is the period which you may find boring, but is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART in a tendering process.

In my sales career, I have had the experience of excellent beginnings neutralized by poor follow up. And it is here that temperament and the confidence is necessary. People will try to sledge you so that you lose your concentration. There are no ground rules here. Everything is below the belt. And it is here that experience pays.

Therefore, it follows that it is here, in this stage, that you will be subjected to ridicule & challenges and as in cricket, it is necessary to keep your head straight. Think of all those runs you have scored against better attacks (if you have not, imagine you would have...forget about real life, if you cannot even DREAM about winning, you are suffering from acute loser blues! My friend, perhaps you should consider a different career and I'm not trying to be funny).

I think that before we move on to another block, maybe we should have a recap. And here goes

Tender Openings: What a specialist does

1. Be present when the tender is being opened, if it is a press tender.Do not be late.

2. Try to make a rolling-your-eyes.."young kids really" expression to the bossman.

3. Don't antagonize anyone but stand up to get the information you are entitled to.

4. If the indentor is known to you, do be in a hurry to end the process, so that the other guys know the least.

5. Judge the competition and you have the idea about their bids.

6. Do not be the first person to leave the room but don't be a pest either so that they can push you out.

7. Give interesting technical answers should you get a chance.

8. Keep your ears in the customer's room. No, I don't mean use the extendable ears invented by Fred and George in "the order of the Phoenix" but think about it and it is possible.

ANECDOTE

One of the biggest dealers of KBL once tried his best to get me out of the race. He could not do anything at the lower level and went up and met the GM of the IOCL refinery. His attempt flopped and I got that order for 2 nos HSC pumps with drives and accessories, i.e. M+P landed that supply order. I don't need to mention the dealer's name as the biggest dealers in  Assam and one of the biggest in India. The same company M+P  later became a little inedible. but life is like that. Moreover, I was lucky that by the time I quit, I had acquired the rudimentary basics of  capital goods marketing. Today M+P market in NE has gone down and the conditions exist which are only a little better then when I was there. It's become the wild west all again

Finally, I forgot to tell you how to ask for an extension. Irrespective as to whether you are organized or not, you'll always find that you are unable to complete in time. Send over a fax or an e-mail asking for an extension because of blah blah( the best excuse always is to the tender justice). Remember, always ask two times what you want and you will  get it. There is a way to do everything and everything is best done in that way. You should either do it or learn how the other man does it, and then try it your way. Its the runs which matter, not how they come

I guess that does it for today.

See you next time. 

Take care and have an awesome day

Bilbo

(I put in the Beatles photo ‘cos there is a similarity...we are on the road too but specially because I am a fan)

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COMMERCIAL TERMS & CONDITIONS

I have seen plenty of sales engineers who think their job is only technical. Is that really so? Definitely not. Say you are reading a detailed Notice Inviting Tender and you mark all clauses containing the words ‘debit’ or ‘credit’ with the remark ‘Accounts’, than you really are living in a fool’s paradise. Commercial terms are an indispensable part of any engineering parcel of any salesperson selling engineering equipment.

CAREFUL STUDY OF TERMS & CONDITIONS

If you ever want to rise up the ladder by your hard work alone and one day manage a team of juniors, you need to be familiar with Managerial Accounts,which is a different subject from financial accounts.

Managerial accounts are those figures and ratios, which your management will study. These are the figures by which the-powers-that-matter, if you head a regional office-the management and if you are the CEO-the stockholder's interests. These are the people you are ultimately responsible to, so ignore them at your own peril.

      What are these commercial terms and what happens if we do not know them..? If I do not know my commercial terms, then I have no business in meeting customers. Not convinced? OK, let us say you are in a electronic appliances store, and you want to buy a laptop,  having already decided the model. As you are satisfied technically, you figure  that you need to know the price. And then you see the price say 280$. You think its a little expensive but never mind, you like it. Then as you open your wallet and start to take out the plastic money, it strikes you that you have no information at all and unless you have some more information, you CAN'T buy it, meaning there's no SALE. Being more precise
"There is no SALE because of the lack of the basic commercial terms"

            But what information that I do not have? What are all these things which I do not know? I have no idea whether the prices are inclusive of taxes and duties. I don't know what other charges are applicable e.g. Packing & Forwarding, Excise Duty, State sale tax, any discounts applicable? I even don't know whether they will accept a cheque or a credit card, etc.( But surely, I can get to know all this information by just asking the staff. Yes, I can do that but selling the laptop is not the issue here. Say, you are at a remote site and you want to place an order fast for some equipment. You have got two quotes, but one has no mention of basic commercial terms.)
        This is the kind of trouble you land your customer in if you omit the commercial terms. Please note that in business lingo, the words’intentional’ and ‘nonintentional’ mean the same. Your forgetting may be a human error but if the  customer suffers a loss because of your messed up quotation, that will not help his career too

The basic Commercial Points that requires a mention are

      (A) Price basis which tells the customer that your prices are quoted ex factory or FOR(this    means Free on Road-it tells the customer that you will bear the transportation expenses) or whatever.

  B) Taxes & Duties: If these are included in the quoted price; what are the rates ; what taxes are being charged etc.

  C) Delivery: How much time will the delivery take. In the laptop case, it will be immediate off  shelf but for customized items, deliveries differ.

      

      D) Payment Terms : 100% against material or through bank or through LC (letter of Credit) or maybe you want a 30% advance payment along with the PO and balance against delivery. We will discuss about this later for delivery and payment are very crucial factors for selling capital equipment.

      E)  Transportation and Transit Insurance : 

      

      F) Validity: Your price is valid till when. Say the customer comes after 6 months, will your price remain the same. Therefore you mention a period 4 weeks, 12 weeks whatever period your prices will be the same and after that subject to renewal.

      These are the main commercial terms. A lot of others are there like P&F costs, warranty, service support, accessories etc. but these are the main. Without one of them your proposal will remain incomplete.

For International trading /selling , we have a set of commercial terms uniform all throughout the world and  which is acceptable and applicable to all nations. These are called INCOTERMS. Every year they are reviewed and revised, if necessary. The picture below will tell you about INCOTERMS .You do not have to be scared of INCOTERMS. They are certainly not rocket science.

That was quite a post.

This point was important however. Anyway, whatever-hope you like it.

Love and best wishes from

    ------------------------

(Someone from Bags-End)