Bidding Process and the Project Assessment - Essay Example

Report on the Bidding Process and the Project Assessment Our bid was one of the few that got accepted for the BAA project and for that reason I feel proud of the entire team that put together such a winning bid especially for this very competitive one. Being one of the biggest airport terminals in Europe, and one of a kind to BAA, there were some adjustments that were made. Generally, the procurement and supply procedures were pushed to a brand new level. Roles and Contributions As the manager in charge of the process, I was assigned some tasks that included ensuring that the cash flows was not just cheap but sustainable and profitable to the side of the company in the long run. Specifically, as the Lead Commercial Affairs & Costs manager, my responsibility was to conduct a detailed cost plan for the project against the designs developed at each stage of the project. I began by preparing initial feasibility budget to identify the expenditure so that the project team could develop their design under the overall estimated costs limits. After the conversation with the design team, I established a project priority in respect of quality, time and cost. Thus, I was able to list some material suppliers who met those criteria we set, then listed them on the procurement proposal which i sent to the Project manager for consideration. I then contacted all selected suppliers to commit the procurement price and then identify any changes to the original proposal. Comments Generally, the conversation we had amongst the team members was a warm one going by the way the discussion was flowing smoothly. Every team member had an issue to contribute. The review was all professional. In terms of success of this team, I would give excellent. The team contribution led to an excellent performance at the bid as well as the output and project performance in general. The group embraced division of labor and specialization in the whole project making work easier to accomplish within the time frame allowed by the BAA. Before we presented the bid, it underwent very strict and careful scrutiny by team members for coherency, flexibility and professionalism. The team took a week tirelessly researching the best available companies that could supply the needed products for the projects and their prices which was encouraging. Precautions/strategies We broke down the job into pieces, examined the working conditions, and analyzed the difficulty of the work. Additionally, we did a background check of every company that was bidding to ascertain their strategies so as to counter them. Then we calculated the cost for all the supplies we needed for the job and all the resulting expenses we expected to incur during the whole project and compared the same to what the client was willing to pay for the project. I then created a forecast cash flow for the project and updated Project manager. Materials To avoid delaying the delivery date, all materials and equipment were pre-ordered (one month earlier) to ensure they were ready for use before the said date. Our procurement price was the lowest due to the huge amount of order we negotiated with our certified reliable suppliers and also included freight charges as opposed to our competitors. For the safety and quality concern, all materials had to pass the European standard. According to client’s special requirement, we ordered a kind of customized aluminium parts to fit in the service & leisure area ceiling, its unit price was £25 which led to abnormal material expenses for 4 months. The Lamp supplier promised us 3 years warranty and promised to supply new products as replenishment by free. Overheads Overheads were mostly composed by the wages payment to 90 workers divided into 3 different teams and other utilities expenditure. One team was left to do tail work at the project’s completion at a wage rate of $21.45/hr./ worker and $15/hr. for security crews. The Van was mainly used to transport the materials between construction plant and the carrier port, therefore, the costs was met after all materials were at the right place. We also rented a company to recycle the waste hence saving the cost of wastage. The Design and Insurance The design proposal was outsourced to a professional designing studio, and they request the payment in full amount before the project initiated. The insurance cost was $85,000 in total and it covered all accident and compensate the client company in case the project delayed which was not the case. We then reviewed all information the rival bidders to ascertain methods they use as strategies to win and came up with the following; we had gathered through the previous steps to check if there was anything my team and I missed. It is from this stage that we settled down to write the bid. Before Bidding BAA had made it clear that they needed quality work and expense should not be an excuse to a shoddy job. So my team set out on a mission to hunt for the best supplier of steel and other factory accessories that will be needed for the job both locally and internationally. The main focus of my team was not the cost but a winning strategy that could see us sail through the bidding process. With the research about the client company, yielding a positive results in terms of paying up clients and a research on the supplying companies narrowing down to one best company, we initiated a process of doing a background check on the competing companies for the bid. This was thoroughly done making sure to check also the method they normally use for bidding. The most serious competitors were only three companies who had the best financial background to supply the required material and pay laborer in case they won the tender. So we did a research on the strategies they normally use to win bids and came up with the following: Bid Sniping Bid sniping was found to be the method most companies use to win bids according to (Jaybrokers, 2009), and so we set to find the advantages and advantages of the same with a view to adopting it if it proved worthwhile. The team realized that it involved placing a bid as late as possible within the auction closing seconds of an auction so that the bid may go unchallenged since it will not give the bidders enough time react to the bid. The team however realized that this method was flawed especially in cases where the company uses automatic bid increment system for which we had information BAA was using. Secondly, this involved exploring last minute rush which can be subject to so many factors against which success is not eminently obvious plus the bid may still be under the current bidders highest bid in which case the result will be such a case, your bid sniping will only increase the price the winning bidder pays, while you lose out on the item. For this reasons, we opted out of this method. Proxy Bidding This method involves a company using other proxies to also submit the bids so that their chances of winning may increase. This may be done by registering other subsidiaries and all these subsidiaries apply for the bid. This was however not going to succeed in this case since BAA demanded access to the companies’ financials and by doing this, it was able to find out if one company was a subsidiary of another and that automatically disqualifies one from the bid. So my team decided on properly writing the bid that could win the contract. Bid Writing After putting into consideration the good credit riskiness of the BAA, skills required for the project, equipment requirement, supply requirements and time needed to be spent on the job plus their resultant expenses, we set out on wring a winning bid. Since my team and I had the necessary experience in this area, it never gave us much challenge. The writing procedure followed this; we wrote down, in few words, how our company was the best choice to serve the client. At this point, we focused on the attributes of our company in a way that reflected value to BAA while portraying a favorable light on our companys best assets for which we boast of high credit rating. We then proposed ideas of tackling the need of our target organization here being BAA. For instance, we showed BAA how close proximity our warehouse was to the site of the T5 and how best our company is qualified for the job citing examples of such like projects we had tackled with a lot of success. We indicated that since the inception of our company in 1967 we (Foster and Partners) have received more than 620 awards for excellence and won over national and international competitions. Then, we proposed a schedule of work that results in high volume of work per given time. We allowed our financials to be accessed by BAA and that developed a good rapport with them. Examples of the projects we quoted to BAA that we had undertaken and that were of importance in relation to T5 project includes: The tessellated glass ceiling of the British Museums Great Court redevelopment and the futuristic interior roof of Hong Kong International Airport. Then we included the section of employees’ details that included the teams qualifications. This was to section serve as a show of the possible strengths that the company had in terms of personnel who were up to task of putting up the best ceiling possible. To add more weight, we recommended to add also the experience of the management team. In addition to the narrative we provided, we also included numerical budget that indicated how relatively our budget was cheaper but with relatively high quality products. This came after we did thorough research on what our competitors were offering in terms of their charges. We indicated that our warehouse was not only used to store materials but was also equipped with lathing machines which will be easy to move to the site faster and at a cheaper cost than other companies. Our bid total cost was estimated to be £7,314,354 before tax with a 5 % tolerance Then we made bare the legal concerns, by declaring that we normally if necessary, make available information about the contract and the bid should the government direct so to the public. For very confidential information of Foster and Partners operations, we included a notation in the bid regarding those paragraphs or sentences Foster and Partners wanted redacted in the case of such government request. Our lawyers also included language that outlines legal redress for serious problems, including options for mediation or civil legal action and this was verified with legal counsel before we included them in our official final document. It is however, important to note that some tiny details of the bid writing like inclusion of company letter head and executive summary are not reported here due to the need to be brief. Conclusion After Bid/project After winning the bid and subsequently executing the project, it was rated a success, by many stakeholders. In fact, the arrangement that BAA had set out for the project that involved interacting and even sharing information with some of our worst rivals proved our expectations wrong. We expected a working environment where people were always at loggerheads thereby dragging the project behind. However, this was not the case since we harmoniously worked together with each ‘person’ learning from the ideas of each other. We were able to accomplish the task within the pre-set timeline to the amazement of the client. We both concluded the project with each other’s reputation remaining tight. For now, the project markets our ability by its standing there in addition to other well accomplished projects. T5 project was a major one given the strict but possible timeline and uncertainties which were insured. The T5 agreement was uncomfortable at the beginning but later proved worthwhile hence was ok being applied at the fit-out work packages. Bibliography Jaybrokers, 2009. Building Strategies: Tips for succesfully winning items. [Online] [Accessed 20th April 2015]. Read More