ive heard many times about contracts coming up for tender or bidding for a contract on tender. how does this work? do they pubish them in a mag/on the net??
Just been wondering about how it works??
A tender process is normally a very specific process, with a set out route to follow, targets to reach and in the end to find the right contractor for your work.
For most tenders you are invited on grounds of doing similar work, advertisement or because they know you from the past.
Very seldom tenders get advertised, as there is a load of confidential information in the process for both parties.
After the different party signs the agreement for confidentiality, you are let into the process; you will get the information about: destinations, product and equipment capability and requirements, training, truck, environmental requirements, quality, expected volumes etc. in a dedicated tender document.
The most tenders go over a certain amount of rounds to be able to select the right contractor on all criteria.
On the most tenders, you have a meeting with the company who writes the tender out, and your competitors, and very often they show you specific loading places and why they have certain demands.
Most times than you have to put your calculations in, and make your proposal meeting all the requirements.
If you passed the first selection, you get invited again for a meeting with the company who invited you for the tender, most times you receive extra information, they inform you on the pricing if you are very far out on certain destinations (pos or neg) to give you a chance to correct and look again.
Most times after that a decision is made and you can have won: The whole tender, a part of the tender or just one or more lanes.
Against general believe, it’s not only about bringing the sharpest price in, normally at the start of the tender, the company let you know how there parts are divided, e.g.:
60% price
20% Equipment requirements
10% environmental
10% added values, for example, storage, repacking, fine distribution etc.
These amounts can be divided in any percentage as they please and more in the past than know was product safety and quality a higher impact than price……….but times have changed!
As far as tenders go, apart from government contracts which has certain rules, it is very much up to the company placing the tender who they ask to tender, - so little things like networking, a few giveaways with your company name/web address on them/ bottle wine/Scotch and Xmas etc keeps you in mind when the idea comes up- being a bit up front and aggressive with your marketing helps, and so does the odd Golf days- being the grey man and just doing the job isn’t going to get you recognised or remembered when it comes to tenders - you have to make a mark to even get your foot in the door. - One thing this industry is very poor at is marketing themselves- but those that do it right get the work- and you don’t need to be huge to market, their are a number of alliances now between hauliers that work together for the bigger contracts- and the emphasis that those alliances have is on marketing not the day to day practicalities of running transport.
Don’t you mean cartel 
Action against cartels is a specific
type of antitrust enforcement. A cartel
is a group of similar, independent
companies which join together to fix
prices, to limit production or to share
markets or customers between them.
Instead of competing with each other,
cartel members rely on each others’
agreed course of action, which
reduces their incentives to provide
new or better products and services
at competitive prices. As a
consequence, their clients (consumers
or other businesses) end up paying
more for less quality.
This is why cartels are illegal under
EU competition law and why the
European Commission imposes heavy
fines on companies involved in a
cartel.
Since cartels are illegal, they are
generally highly secretive and
evidence of their existence is not easy
to find. The ’ leniency policy ’
encourages companies to hand over
inside evidence of cartels to the
European Commission. The first
company in any cartel to do so will
not have to pay a fine. This results in
the cartel being destabilised. In recent
years, most cartels have been
detected by the European
Commission after one cartel member
confessed and asked for leniency,
though the European Commission
also successfully continues to carry
out its own investigations to detect
cartels.
Nice cut and paste 
not sure how is relevant though as any company is entitled to choose it own suppliers- either on cost or on service levels - its their choice- how a “cartel” comes into that I am unsure unless all tendering collude to fix the price.
Thanks for the two replies, i thought is was something like a advert and u put ur deal forward. So for a one man band/ very small haulier is it very hard to gain a contract then??
Sorry for the silly questions, just doing some research
bee chris:
Thanks for the two replies, i thought is was something like a advert and u put ur deal forward. So for a one man band/ very small haulier is it very hard to gain a contract then??Sorry for the silly questions, just doing some research
No Chris it’s not, but tender processes are nearly always used for the bigger contract.
The smaller contracts are most times a matter of being on the right place at the right time, or your name comes out the hat, because they remember your name, or face because you have done a little networking.
When my parents had still their own business e.g. Where still alive, my Dad use to say; there are 3 type of customers you need to visit, first the customers who you have and never complain, second the customers who you have lost, third anybody who could be having some business for you.
You can pop several times up to them, and many times they dont have anything, but… When they need somebody,and your face is the last they have seen, you may be in for some business.
There are many big and small operators working without a contract, some of them for years, in other cases is the contract not worth the paper it has been written on.
where do firms/ owner driver advertise if they are selling up or gone/going bust??
There used to be a company called Freight Traders where companies invited hauliers to tend to move their goods.
Doesn’t appear to be around now but was a great site allowing small hauliers to tender for work against the bigger hauliers.
Most of the work offered for tender was decent and some big blue chip companies posted You were notified if your tender was accepted or not.
Doesn’t seem to be an equivalent now so If you want to tender for work then as Rikki says you need to market yourself.
I remember that freight traders web site routier. Seemed pretty good, mostly European work and probably best for the big boys but was a great idea.
how do you find about loads for italy etc?
You ring up firms you think may export stuff to Italy and then make your pitch.
Someone was saying freightex web site had export loads, you’ll be competing with Slobodan at £1 per click but such is life.
Sparks transport do Italy, you’d need to be bumming the owner to get a sniff of that though I’d say.
Thank SS, my firm do loads to italy, but ive not had the luck to find out who for ( i cant do the runs as my face dont fit) or what their rate is, i know the company they backload for and the rate.