Tendering in the Creative sector

May 10, 2020

Whilst Tenderwin has vast experience of working on tenders across a variety of sectors, our core business remains the Creative sector, with over 80% of our work revolving around this sector’s differing disciplines. 

These include full service marketing solutions, website builds, graphic design, PR, print, signage, plus any variation of these disciplines.

Whereas historically, print-related tenders have tended to have been more price-driven, there has been a noticeable trend over recent years of the proportion of the overall score being attributable to quality. In 2015 for instance, it would have been the norm to have expected to see print tenders scoring pricing at 50% of the overall score. Nowadays, although still significant, pricing is scored at around 30%. This opens up the possibility for the print tenderer to accent their response on the overall quality of the operational offer; not simply having to go in with fine rates, with little or no margin to have any chance of winning the contract.

Creative tenders requiring a more strategic bent have tended to focus the price/quality scoring index toward how the authority’s objectives shall be met and the mechanism by which that will be achieved, so quality has tended to see the lionshare of the scoring, at around 70 to 80%.

The tendering scoring approach can appear somewhat mechanistic to those of a more creative mindset, making it a more difficult and frustrating experience for creatives to navigate their way through the process-driven and overtly procedural tendering process. When considering tendering for the first time, it quickly becomes clear that winning public sector work differs significantly from the people-led, more emotionally nuanced approach taken to win work with private sector clients! Indeed, it has been said that the ‘polar opposite mindsets’ of creatives and civil servants makes creatives less willing to engage in the process.

Creative tenders are however, quite prevalent in public sector tendering, providing the Creative sector with an opportunity to tap into this market. Tenderwin is ‘fluent’ in both public sector and creative language. We add to the richness of our creative clients’ tenders, as we are able to translate the requirements, then present the solution in a manner in which the evaluators will be most receptive.

If you’re a creative business and would like to discuss how Tenderwin could help your business to win creative tenders in the public sector, contact Daniel Bouvet on (07990) 524513.