The buying process for a further competition can be completed in the following 6 steps:
1. Find an agreement that meets your needs
Before you can run a further competition, you must find a commercial agreement that meets your needs.
Make sure that the agreement you choose:
- follows the Public Contract Regulations 2015
- has more than 1 supplier
You can use CCS’s free eSourcing tool to run your further competition. If you’d prefer, you can use your own organisation’s eSourcing tool.
2. Define your requirements
This is where you determine exactly what your needs are and what you want from the contract. For example:
- what do you want to buy in this contract
- how long do you want the contract to last
- are you buying the product or service once or will it be a longer term arrangement
You’ll also need to prepare an invitation to tender (ITT) along with a draft contract. These may be provided in template format as part of an agreement’s schedule documents.
3. Invite suppliers to bid for your tender
Use your preferred eSourcing tool to send your ITT to eligible suppliers. You must invite all suppliers under the relevant agreement or lot unless you have created a supplier shortlist or completed an expression of interest (EOI).
If the commercial agreement allows, you can shortlist the suppliers to find the ones most suitable for your procurement using a capability assessment tool.
Some agreements allow you to send an expression of interest (EOI) to all suppliers. This allows you to find out how many suppliers are interested and also reduces the number of suppliers you need to invite to further competition.
4. Evaluate supplier responses
This is where you look through all the supplier responses and evaluate them to determine which supplier best meets your needs. You will use the award criteria you set out during the ITT stage to evaluate and assess their answers.
5. Award your contract
Use the score you gave at evaluation stage to identify the winning supplier. Before you can award the contract to them you must notify all suppliers of the result.
You should dispatch all award letters and letters to unsuccessful suppliers at the same time.
6. Include a 10 day standstill period (optional)
The standstill period should be at least 10 calendar days. During this time the contract award process is suspended. This gives unsuccessful suppliers the opportunity to consider feedback or call for a review of the decision.
Once the standstill period has passed you can begin your contract with the winning supplier.
Speak to your commercial team or legal advisors if you need advice to decide if this is appropriate for your procurement or not.
