22nd July 2011, 02:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 22nd July 2011, 02:19 PM by Devillish Advocate.)
Jack Wrote:To survive an archaeological company has to win tenders.
I'm not trying to be a complete cock here, but surely reducing your tender to in order to ensure it gets accepted is exactly what undercutting is?
It is also exactly how the competitive tendering system is supposed to work, so in that respect there is no problem. The problem, of course, is that competitive tendering relies on the client caring about the quality of the result as well as the cost. As we are in the somewhat unique position of being employed by people that neither want nor understand our service, they will naturally opt for the cheapest, rather than the most cost effective, solution. As such, constantly reducing our rates just because that is what the client wants leads to poor standards of archaeology and poor archaeologists, in every sense.
That said one of our regular clients has a policy of rejecting out of hand both the most expensive and the cheapest tender they receive, for all sub-contracted services not just archaeology. I presume that is the only reason we continue to get work with them when we generally refuse to cut our own throats to win tenders.