There's often a lot of emotions following a decision to move or refurbish an office. There's excitement over the possibilities, concerns around impacts on jobs and commutes to work and the usual resistance to change. It's easy to get caught up in the details or just overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task which often results in disruptions to business as usual. 

Through the excitement of seeing your vision come to life during the design and fitout tender process, it’s easy to forget the project objectives set out at the beginning of your journey. Problems often arise when design or budget is more heavily weighted in the final decision than agreed from the start. A structured tender process helps to optimise your competitive tender and helps to avoid deviation from your original goals. 

Here are our top 5 tips for effectively comparing competitive tenders for your office fitout, so you can get the most out of your tender process:

1. Set out key selection criteria to objectively evaluate suppliers

Clearly aligning your project goals from the start should inform your project brief and help to prioritise your supplier selection criteria. This assists with the decision-making process and ensures your selection is based on what matters most to the success of your project.

Don’t fall into the trap of selecting your fitout partner based on a ‘better design’ or delivering on a lower budget. These should often be regarded as lower priorities when making your selection. 

Designs undergo substantial evolution in collaboration with your selected fitout partner following the contract award, providing ample opportunity to refine the solution. As design is so subjective, it can be challenging to objectively compare. The strength of a design brief can also have huge implications on the outcome, reinforcing the need for clear objectives from the start and a process that ensures a consistent message is delivered to all tenderers. Focusing on  companies communication, methodology and approach to collaboration is a more effective measure reflecting on how good a partner they will be for your business.

Communicate your budget as part of your project brief, providing fitout suppliers equal opportunity to maximise your return. To more easily compare suppliers its best to reduce the variables. With everybody targeting the same outcome, budgets will be easier to directly compare and changes the narrative from the cheapest to the best value. Understanding the suppliers cost of running the project rather than the built environment is a better way to compare value over price.

2. Less is more 

Limit your project tender to 3 design and fitout companies, 4 if you absolutely must. It’s a false economy and an over commitment of your time and resources to; meet, brief, develop concepts, run a competitive tender and then compare all the proposals before selecting the right partner for you. Vetting companies prior to inviting them to pitch builds confidence and should remove the need to invite more than 3 suppliers to tender. 

Referrals to potential partners will be plentiful once word is out you're looking to move or refurbish, but it’s important to understand if these referrals are impartial and in your best interest. Often they will actively exclude other potential suppliers that could be a better option for you. 

Check out Ratesmiths online matching portal to see which design and fitout companies are best suited to deliver your project needs. Register to access our fully automated matching system, designed to remove referral prejudice and ensuring matches are in your best interest.

3. Select suppliers based on fit to your project brief

If you're looking at an office fitout for a 100sqm space, it probably doesn't make sense to invite suppliers to tender who specialise in spaces larger than 1000sqm, and vice versa. Selecting suppliers who don't fit your project brief devalues the tender process and can result in underbidding which increases potential risk to your project in the long run. 

Driving down prices of large suppliers to compete with smaller suppliers can seem like a win in the short term, but this can result in attempts to claw back margin through the project resulting in time delays and ongoing changes to the project scope. Similarly, engaging larger suppliers for small projects can impact the value delivered across the project as they have larger operational costs to cover.

If you’re being charged less and the businesses are comparable sizes, the reality is you’re probably receiving a lesser quality of product or service. Consider some of the following criteria when comparing proposals:

• Staffing costs - seniority level and hours charged of the project team (full-time / part-time).
• Preliminaries - what is included / excluded. 
• Mechanical services - if there are substantial differences, it's important to understand why. Is it a result of the design, a company being more thorough in their due diligence or planning to use or install new.
• Provisional sums - these are estimates only, are not typically based on contractor quotes and may highlight areas that require further due diligence. Questions should be raised if there are too many provisional sums relative to other proposals.
• Approvals - ensure all companies are allowing for the relevant approvals. Any submission missing the required approvals should be a red flag and raise questions of a suppliers ability to deliver a compliant solution. 

4. Provide structured templates for supplier submissions

The biggest challenge of the process communicated by previous clients is how difficult and time consuming it is to try and directly compare proposals. Terminology alone, and limited experience in office fitouts, can leave teams ill equipped to decipher the technical details of supplier proposals. It's so common you'll often hear suppliers using the term 'apples with apples' throughout your project. This is the reason companies have procurement teams, giving them greater control over the process with the objective of getting the best value. 

Providing a format for fitout companies to adhere to allows your team to easily assess submissions based on your key criteria, saving time and hassle of deciphering the nuances between suppliers proposals. Setting out key dates from supplier’s meetings to submission and contract award sets the standard for what you expect. 

5. Communicate the criteria suppliers will be evaluated on

Communication is key to achieving the best result. Holding back key information will lead to ambiguity, which will be reflected in the different approaches taken by the companies tendering - making it even more challenging to compare them. 

Prioritising what matters most to your business empowers suppliers to target areas that will deliver the best outcomes, resulting in key areas being allocated larger portions of investment, and helping to evaluate suppliers ability to deliver on the brief. 

Register with Ratesmiths to access our easy to use, customisable tender and supplier evaluation templates. Take the guess work out of your decision to deliver better results.