howto become agency/consultant company

[phoenix32]

Thanks for you valuable inputs

A friend of mine was advised here, some of you may know.
Contracts Finder

These are government contracts and some of them also has a requirement docs attached. I think finance industry does it similar.

Long story short from this public RFQ:
https://procontract.due-north.com/Fi...tTypeId=Advert

- there are compliance requirements ( anti-fraud, GDPR, etc)
- there are procedures about staff (screening etc)
- an extensively insured and financially good company (no problems in past etc)

[northernladuk]

Why are you telling us this?

[tomtomagain]

Thanks for you valuable inputs

A friend of mine was advised here, some of you may know.
Contracts Finder

Have you ever worked on a tender? Either from the buyer-side or supplier-side? If not apply for a few of them and receive and review the documentation. You don't have to submit a tender.

The first few stages of any competitive tendering process is to eliminate the majority of applicants. Especially if you are tendering for some fairly generic work, for example website development or general software development.

Types of questions you will be asked are along the lines of:

* What is your turnover to the nearest £million
* How many years have you been in business
* Submit an organisation chart - this is popular, quickly flushes out the one-or-two man-bands.
* What %age staff work in the technical or support functions.
* What %age of your staff are off-shore ( a low percentage is not an advantage, the perception is that you will be cheaper ).

If you get through the initial screening then there's often an open forumn where you will be able to ask clarification questions on the bid, the questions and answers are supplied to all parties.

Then you might get to submit your proposal - which could have involved you working on it, unpaid, for several days. I've seen proposals that require hundreds of questions to be answered. I have just had to answer an 86 question security assesment myself.

You might be asked to supply the CVs of any staff who will be working on the project. This is quite common too.

If your bid is short-listed, there may well be a presentation stage, at which you present yourself and company ( and key staff ) to the client. They may want to do this at your office, as it gives them a chance to suss you out.

Then the client makes his choice.

Let's say you "win". The next stage is commercial negotations, followed by contracts being issued.

Then you have to do the work.

Finally, depending on how you structured the contract, you get paid.

Applying for and winning business is a full-time job. That's why consultancies and software houses have entire teams dedicated to pre-sales, it isn't just a case of quickly filling in a couple of documents and crossing your fingers.

Once you have got in through the door subsequent contracts can be a lot simpler to win. Often the client has already made up their mind on who they want to use but are required to go through a competitive process anyway.

[Cid]

* Submit an organisation chart - this is popular, quickly flushes out the one-or-two man-bands.

Got it covered.

[Lance]

Got it covered.

'guessed'

[phoenix32]

Got it covered.

Awesome

[tomtomagain]

Awesome

It needs updating. He's missed all the sales, marketing and HR roles off.