Class Details
Tender Writing Course: Submit a Compelling Tender Proposal
Course summary
Finding new markets is essential to growing your business, and a tender bid is a valuable complement to your existing business development systems. It is also the most transparent way your business can pitch for the billions of dollars of business projects awarded each year in Australia, throughout the public and private sectors.
This tender writing short course offers a practical guide for individuals or businesses seeking to improve their tender response skillset. The course explains the content you will need to submit a high-quality tender proposal in the public and private sectors, and provides clear tools and frameworks to use across the three main stages of tender response. We also discuss the different factors that can demonstrate good value for money in tendering.
You will gain insights into finding tender and procurement opportunities for your business, putting together a tendering team, evaluating and responding to a request for tender, and preparing a compelling proposal package for submission using best-practice documentation. Several of these document formats are provided as templates, including cover letters, executive summaries and quality control documents.
You should finish the course feeling confident that successful tendering is more about demonstrating that their business can meet specific criteria, and less about slick wordsmithing or unrealistic pricing. The course aims to put you and your business in the best position to engage in the tendering process and successfully persuade buyers to choose your product or service.
The content in this course aligns to the following framework:
Proactive preparation + Robust project management + Excellence in execution = Compelling tender proposal
Aims
This course aims to:
- help you understand that meticulous preparation is key to successful tendering
- equip your business with the definitions and insights to become tender-ready
- help you determine whether a tender opportunity is viable for your business
- provide the tools and frameworks to help you respond correctly to evaluation criteria, prepare a budget, meet industry standards and consider other key requirements
- help you design a tender response that demonstrates good value and not just low pricing.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
- discuss the many facets and requirements of quality tender preparation, writing and submission
- identify the content required to prepare, write and submit a quality tender proposal
- understand the different phases of a tendering process, and the aims, objectives and priorities of buyers
- meet and address all criteria and present a value for money proposal
- identify different types of business opportunities including tenders, procurement, preferred supplier
- apply the tender preparation, writing and submission methodology to your next submission, using the best-practice document structures introduced
- engage in meaningful discussions with professional colleagues on issues relating to tenders.
Content
The course will empower you to manage your own tender submissions following the three broad phases outlined below. Each section is delivered in an interactive style involving case studies, discussion and hands-on exercises to be completed in class.
Throughout the day, you may work either on their own tender documentation or the generic example from the textbook. To avoid issues with file security on the day, please make sure to download or print any such materials in advance.
Section 1 – Proactive preparation
Become tender-ready by understanding the tendering landscape, commonly required documents to include in your digital library, and different procurement models to consider. This section includes:
- Key definitions and commonly confused terms
- Overview of the procurement process
- Where to find tender opportunities
- Components of a typical tender package
Section 2 – Robust project-management
This section steps you through the eight core phases involved in a tender response, and the tools, team members and milestones to factor in. We also discuss:
- How tenders are evaluated
- 10 ways to demonstrate genuine value for money
- Commonwealth government procurement principles
- Difference between compliance, conformance and non-conformance
Section 3 – Excellence in execution
In the final part of the course, we put pen to paper and start writing your responses across different areas of the tender documentation. You will gain insights into writing the following:
- Best-practice cover letter (template included)
- Best-practice executive summary (template included)
- Essentials of a capabilities statement
- Answer-mapping your response to tender questions
- Using appropriate evidence
- Editing your writing for a clear, concise and error-free result
Who this course is for
This is a practical course that will suit individuals or businesses preparing to submit their first tender, and more established businesses looking for ways to improve their existing tendering process. The content is applicable to participants from a range of sectors including construction, arts, education, health, science, technology, sports, community, non-profit and social services.
Prerequisites
None
Delivery style
This tender writing course is an interactive workshop which includes presenter training, in-class exercises, class discussion and Q&A sessions. You will be able to work on your own tender documentation, or the generic example provided in the textbook.
Delivery mode
- Face-to-face, presenter-taught training using your own device
- Online training via the platform Zoom
Materials
All course materials are provided electronically (via Dropbox). The workbook is provided as an editable pdf and the template appendices as Microsoft Word or Excel documents.
What you need to do before the course
Please bring a laptop and any current or past tender documents you've worked on. If you do not have any work in progress, you may work on the generic example provided in the course.
Sessions
Location
Face-to-face (Venue TBA, Sydney)
Other information
If your upcoming class is Face-to-face (Venue TBA, Sydney), the class is located at the Camperdown/Darlington campus but the exact classroom and building has not been assigned.
The exact location on campus is confirmed approximately five business days from a class start date and you will then receive a course preparation email with this information.
Meet the facilitators
Flavia Marcello
Flavia is a writer and teacher with decades of experience leading and developing peer promotions, career development and grant-writing programs. She has a strong track record in winning grants from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, as well as a Fellowship from the British School at Rome.
Alongside a colleague, she pioneered the use of design thinking approaches to grant-writing and ran a highly successful series of workshops at Swinburne University of Technology and the Women in Science Precinct Parkville.
Flavia has a PhD from the University of Sydney and has taught in both undergraduate and postgraduate architecture courses, with a focus on global and social themes. She has written two books and more than 30 articles and book chapters, and is a world expert on the art, architecture and design of the Italian Fascist and post-war periods.
She is a Director of Synergy3 Consulting. Some of her past clients include the Design Institute of Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Florey Institute, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and the ASTRO 3D ARC Centre of Excellence.
Now an Affiliate Professor in the Italian Studies Department at the University of Sydney, she facilitates a historical fiction group at Writing NSW and is a trained and accredited mentor in the Academic Navigation process developed by Ethos Consulting.
