21st June 2007, 02:39 PM
In common with other consultants posting on this thread, I do not award contracts solely on the basis of price, and the cheapest tender is not always successful.
If I am composing a tender list and I want to exclude a given unit that might be cheaper than others, I will only do so for good reasons. I will also tell the client what I am doing and why, and seek their agreement.
Reasons that have applied in the past include:
- previous experience of the unit (i.e. poor quality work);
- knowing that the unit's resources are already overstretched;
- a need for certain specialist expertise not available at that unit;
- advice from a curator that they did not consider the unit suitable for a particular job, for specific reasons.
If the client does insist on including a unit we don't want in the list, or on appointing the cheapest against our advice, we will comply - but we will also advise them of the risks associated with the decision, and what they need to do about those risks.
On a related topic, we recently rejected a cheap tender because it listed key team members that we knew to be fully committed elsewhere, and where we knew that they could not be redeployed. The unit was using a good CV to help win a job, knowing that they would get someone to actually do the work who did not meet our specified minimum qualifications. That is deliberate deception, and we would look carefully at future tenders from that organisation.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
If I am composing a tender list and I want to exclude a given unit that might be cheaper than others, I will only do so for good reasons. I will also tell the client what I am doing and why, and seek their agreement.
Reasons that have applied in the past include:
- previous experience of the unit (i.e. poor quality work);
- knowing that the unit's resources are already overstretched;
- a need for certain specialist expertise not available at that unit;
- advice from a curator that they did not consider the unit suitable for a particular job, for specific reasons.
If the client does insist on including a unit we don't want in the list, or on appointing the cheapest against our advice, we will comply - but we will also advise them of the risks associated with the decision, and what they need to do about those risks.
On a related topic, we recently rejected a cheap tender because it listed key team members that we knew to be fully committed elsewhere, and where we knew that they could not be redeployed. The unit was using a good CV to help win a job, knowing that they would get someone to actually do the work who did not meet our specified minimum qualifications. That is deliberate deception, and we would look carefully at future tenders from that organisation.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished