Twila Bamford, Response Consultant
TenderSearch
Twila has been involved in tender response and bid management for the past 3 years and has coordinated tenders for both government and private organisations. Twila first became involved in tendering as the Western Canadian Contracts and Administrative Manager for a large Oilfield Company in Alberta, Canada. In this role, Twila coordinated marketing material, business plans, all bids, prequalification documentation and tender responses encompassing 11 operating areas, preparing information on services, specifications, methodologies and pricing.  Working with business operations managers, executive management and the chief financial officer to make strategic decisions about positioning in tender responses.

Through this and other roles, Twila has developed a sound understanding of business processes and policy management, customer service, operational procedures as well as further enhancing her technical writing skills.  All attributes which are important when preparing tender responses.  Twila possesses an education in Agriculture, Finance and a Bachelor of Science Degree, majoring in Sales and Marketing. As a member of the TenderSearch Response Team, Twila has assisted many clients with their tender responses through providing advice, evaluating tenders and writing tender responses. As a TenderSearch Response Consultant, Twila has responded to tenders across a diverse range of industries, assisting both large and small sized organisations.  These experiences have provided Twila with further knowledge to assist clients in responding effectively to Tender requests.

Session Overview
Responding to tenders provides organisations with excellent opportunity to expand the horizons of their business.  In fact, the tendering process is an effective business development tool. However, tenders can be complex documents that require a serious commitment of time and resources. Volumes of documents, legal contracts and repetitive questioning can deter even the most capable organisation. More and more business is being awarded through the tendering process, thus organisations need to develop a clear understanding of how tenders are awarded, develop sales strategies for their proposals and apply the best practice standards to their tender responses, ensuring that they can respond quickly and professionally when needed. As the market grows ever-more competitive, it is vital that tender responses clearly address all aspects of the buyer’s request and highlight the benefits of the proposal to the buyer in a well-presented professional manner. We aim to present the basic principles of responding to tenders and some guidelines to increase your potential to succeed through the tender process.

Key Outcomes
- A clearer understanding of the tendering process
- Knowledge in evaluating and deciding whether to respond to a particular opportunity
- An overview of the buyers expectations
- Insight into common myths and mistakes and how to avoid them
- Information in creating effective content and formatting of tender responses