Most organisations that sell products, supplies, or productised services to the public sector are missing out and could be selling a lot more. A LOT MORE.

(Here, "productised services" include digital-first services, subscription-based services, as-a-service-solutions, packaged service products, and any work-as-a-service).

The reason for missing out is often two-fold. A lack of understanding of how to sell to the public sector and a lack of the right tools to support the sales operation.

The Traditional Way of Selling to the Public Sector

For many companies, the way they sell products and productised services to the public sector has been unchanged for decades.

Simplified, it often looks something like this:

• A company monitors the world of public tenders.
• When a buyer issues an invitation to tender for something the company supplies, a bid may be put together.
• If the bid is won, and it’s a contract for immediate delivery, then the company delivers.
• If it’s a framework/DPS and the award is “a place on the framework/DPS”, the company sits back and waits until the buyer requests a quote.

Active Selling is Missing

Time and again, we observe that the most successful public sector suppliers are successful because they are actively selling to the public sector; much in the way they are selling to the private sector.

When selling to the private sector, they of course also respond to inbound requests, but they actively go prospecting.

They identify potential customers who are likely to require for their products and start establishing a relationship with them (aka “selling”).

Many companies don’t do this with the public sector, due to a misunderstanding that the public sector only buys things via tenders, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Public sector organisations can buy directly from you without going to tender, by using frameworks and DPSs.

Again, some organisations are deterred from active selling because they are not on many frameworks.

In EU/UK, public sector organisations can often use other public sector organisation’s or purchasing organisations' frameworks, even if they were not part of the creation of the framework.

For organisations that are on any frameworks (or other similar contracting vehicles), it is the salesperson’s responsibility to make sure what contracting avenues are available to a prospect, who is interested in buying from them.

Intelligence is Needed to Win

Intelligence plays a crucial part in the competition to win more business with the public sector.

The intelligence you need and how you act on it depends partly on whether you are on any frameworks or other general contracting vehicles in the country in question.

Intelligence Setup in Countries where you are NOT on any Frameworks

In countries where you are not on any frameworks or DPSs that can be used as general contracting vehicles, you need to do the following as a minimum:

• Review every relevant active DPSs to see if you should join any of them.
• Monitor for single-supply tenders for what you supply.
  • Opportunities are evaluated and you may bid or not.
• Monitor for announcements of frameworks/DPSs for what you supply.
  • Opportunities are evaluated and you are likely to bid, even if the framework is not perfect. You really need a general-purpose contracting vehicle for your services. Preferably a good one, but you need one.
• Monitor for VEATs related to your market and competitors.
  • Increasingly VEATs are tentative awards that provide a short window for other suppliers to make themselves known. Don’t miss this.
• Review all contract awards for your products/services and those of your competitors for the last 5 years and engage with the buyer.
• Monitor all contracts that are coming to an end in the coming 24 months and engage with the buyers.

Intelligence Setup for Countries where you ARE on a (good) Framework

In countries where you are on one or more good frameworks/DPSs you should do all the things described above for countries where you are not; except with one adjustment: You evaluate new frameworks a little more critically.

In addition to the above, you should also do the following:

• Monitor for procurements that indicate that the buyer may realistically need your services, now or in the future.
  • When identified, you use this as a reason to introduce yourself and build a relationship.
• Contact all public sector organisations who may reasonably have a need for your services and build relationships, so they get to know your brand, what you do, and the problems you help solve.

For the last two initiatives, the organisations are often divided among several account managers or heavily prioritised.

The New Drivers of Success

When analysing the companies that are most successful in growing their public sector business, some key traits are easily identified:

• They actively sell. Gone are the old days when public sector business was just about winning bids and waiting for call-offs from frameworks.
• They provide intelligence their salespeople and bid people to be proactive rather than reactive.

AI is a Key Enabler

When it comes to configuring searches that capture relevant procurement information, the traditional approach of searching for keywords and/or CPV codes leads to many missed opportunities.

Every day, relevant procurement notices are published where the buyer describes what they want to buy, using words and phrases that are different to those we were expecting the buyer to use, and classified using wrong or very generic CPV codes.

Tenderlake solves this problem by taking advantage of the AI revolution by offering AI Search.

Tenderlake AI Searches transforms any description of a service offering or individual expertise into meaning, which is matched with the meaning of procurement notices.

This enables Tenderlake to identify opportunities that are relevant to a description of a business unit, practice area or individual specialism, even if there are no shared words or phrases in the two descriptions.

AI also helps identify signals that indicate when a buyer is likely to have a future need for a company’s products and services, which again enables sales teams to start engaging earlier than what has traditionally been possible.

The Tenderlake Difference

Tenderlake provides the solution and access to the data that powers growth in public sector sales with a growing number of top-tier companies.

For organisations operating throughout Europe, we also make every contract notice and prior information notice available in English.

This not only speeds up screening of opportunities but allows searching across all European tenders using the same, English-language searches.

Ready to Go All-In?

If you are ambitious about growing your company’s sales to the public sector, then get in touch for a discussion about how Tenderlake can help your ambitions become reality faster than you might think.

Contact us for an informal discussion about how Tenderlake can help you achieve your ambitions.