Quality Management and the Tender Process

Depending on the tender your organisation puts itself forward for, the submission will need to be weighted with policies, procedures and business collateral, to support your claims in order to win the contract.

An example of this can be highlighting your company’s Quality Management System. However, this is a competitive area in the tender process and can be hard to evidence properly.

This is where the ISO:9001 standard comes into its own. This is a Quality Management Standard which is awarded by a third party to organisations who must pass a strict audit process.

ISO standards are internationally recognised and extremely detailed. Plus, they can be used as evidence for a company meeting the requirements of a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ), or Invitation to Tender (ITT).

Implementing ISO standards can bring benefits to your business, including making sure that employees are clear about their job role, what is expected of them, as well as making sure that all of your client’s needs are met.

As well as the Quality Management Standard, there are an increasing number of tender opportunities that have a requirement for companies to have Environmental and Information Security systems in place.

The growth of green

With the continued environmental obligations on countries to become more ‘green’, this of course, filters down into contracts that are available, as governments seek to protect themselves from potential negative press on environmental issues.

With this in mind, organisations can look to achieve the ISO:14001 Environmental Management standard. Again, this is a comprehensive solution that could add extra weight to your submission, and could even be the difference between a pass or fail.

Cyber Security demands

With the emergence of hacking groups such as Anonymous, Chaos Computer Club and Lizard Squad, Cyber Security has become heavily publicised, following a number of high-profile internet breaches.

Due to this, information security has become another element that may require evidencing on a number of tenders.

This can be satisfied with organisations being awarded the ISO:27001 Information Security Management standard, which makes sure that your business has the tools in order to protect itself from potential cyber breaches, which will have serious consequences in terms of cost and public image.

This is even more important when dealing with extremely sensitive data.

Increasing success

Finally, while it can be hard to quantify how much influence ISO standards can have on the success of your bid writing, considering that the PQQ and ITT is one of the first things reviewed, the ability to provide comprehensive evidence will significantly improve the odds!

For more information on how to achieve ISO certification or to see if it is the best route for your business, please click here to contact a member of the team.

ISO Quality Services Ltd are proud to specialise in the implementation and certification of the Internationally recognised ISO and BS EN Management Standards.

Primarily working with clients throughout the whole of the UK and Ireland, ISO Quality Services Ltd also cover Europe and the UAE.

Do you want to get ahead of your competition? Win more tenders or save time and money on reoccurring issues? Contact us today!

Our Bid Management Partners

At Thornton & Lowe we support in excess of 400 PQQs and tenders across a wide variety of industry sectors and client types every year – from SMEs to blue-chip organisations and public-sector bodies.

What we always see with public-sector opportunities, is a requirement for ISO Certifications. Sometimes this can be a mandatory requirement (pass/fail), weighted (where you can score marks depending on your answer), or just for information purposes.

We understand that in business, it can be difficult to communicate effectively with existing customers (to grow the account), as well as developing key relationships with potential new clients.