Every tender we’ve submitted in the last few months has been delayed. And not just those: I get updates about every tender I enquire about, and they’re ALL running late. The explanation we’re given is nearly always the same: buyers received far more submissions than they expected and didn’t have the capacity to evaluate them… Read More Everything’s late
I saw a post about a public-sector training framework in my feed recently, and it got well over a hundred comments. I read them all, and it’s left me feeling a bit dismayed. Firstly, most of the comments were tags: “thought of you”, “one for us?”. That’s fair enough – that’s how LinkedIn works. But… Read More “How do we tender for this?”
I was working through a tender last week from a public body with the usual stack of documents. The insurance section asked for employer’s liability at £10m, public liability at £5m and professional indemnity at £1m. Pass/fail. We don’t have employer’s liability insurance because we don’t employ anyone. Llarn is two directors and a pool… Read More Ask the question
Public sector buyers are starting to ask a different question in tenders. Not just what will you deliver, but how was this bid produced? Specifically, was AI used, how was it used, and what checks were applied? That brings the process behind the submission into scope. The issue is not whether suppliers use AI –… Read More You and AI
I published a post on personalisation this week, and the same day, I received a pre-market questionnaire for a procurement process. I found myself writing the same thing in a different register. Procuring a platform is not the same as building capability. Sharon Green made the point well in the comments: the skill of navigating… Read More Buying badly