Tender Site Visits
By Werner van Rooyen, Director of HowToTender (Pty) Ltd which specializes in tender consulting and tender training.
If you are so fortunate to have reached the stage where Organs of State or Private Sector Companies want to do a site visit, you must know that you are in the final stage in winning that tender that you have responded to.
But what must you do to prepare for a site visit?
The first thing is to ensure that your place of business is in excellent order. Be sure everything is clean and neat. A clean workshop or office is a pre-requisite and non-negotiable.
Secondly ensure that your employees are prepared and that they are at work the day of the site visit. You do not want to be in a situation where the Evaluation Committee Member asks you to demonstrate a procedure and you can't because the specific employee that operates that specific peace of engineering or tool or computer is not at work the day of the site visit. You are going to end up with a red face and the Committee is not going to be impressed.
One of the main reasons the Evaluation Committee does site visits is to ensure your business do exists. This may sound weird but believe me there have been horrifying stories of people that have been awarded tenders and then the Organ of State finds out that the vendor operates out of his vehicle! It is imperative to have an operating business. It is also a way to combat fraud; by doing a site visit, the Organ of State verifies that the Vendor is not just a person fronting. There have been many instances in the past where tenders have been awarded to businesses that do not actually exist.
The Evaluation Committee will also verify many other things that are important in awarding the tender. These may include:
- How many employees you have?
- Do you have the correct machinery?
- Do you enough other resources to do the job at hand?
The best advice I can give you is to be prepared. Ensure that everything is in order the day of the site visit. Prepare your employees so that they know what to do and what to answer when asked that tough questions. But most of all, be happy, because you have reached the final stages of the tender process, but keep in mind that at the end of the day a site visit can go wrong, and you might not be awarded that tender. So, be prepared!
To learn more about this and many other tender conditions attend our “Become a Tender Expert” 2-Day workshops presented in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town. Book and pay online at https://howtotender.co.za/tender-expert-form/
Contact us at wernervr@howtotender.co.za should you require more information.
You can also purchase a Tender Manual (Handbook) on our website https://howtotender.co.za/ which is a step by step guide how to respond to a South African Tender. It includes examples of completed SBD forms.
