A court ruling that I agree with regarding jobs and degrees

**Road_Hog** · 17-05-2012, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by Besoeker

Bids for projects of significant value go out out to an electronic tendering process.
Documentation can be upwards of 100Meg just to qualify to be on the bidders list.
This is particularly the case in the utilities sector. But you know, going in, that there will be a helluva lot of work involved in getting past that first hurdle.
All of that part is done electronically. And it's a lot of work. It makes you selective about what you bid for.

Get beyond that and you might be invited to tender if you meet the requirements of being a suitably qualified supplier.
You have all your ducks in a row on anything from ensuring that you deal with suppliers who have a clean bill of health regarding human rights to waste disposal.
That's just to make it the bidder list

Get there and then you have a whole set of other documents defining everything from performance specifications to the timber used in packing cases.

Get beyond that, submit a compliant and competitive offer and, if considered, telephone negotiations might begin.
It's the last stage. Not the first.

Ah, the joys of tendering, especially large companies, and utilities and government owned agencies.

I enjoyed working at my old company (a very large international company), where we made hitech equipment that was universally recognised within the industry. It was both top end and mass market.

Although we used a dealer network, we would sometimes negotiate a large order directly and then organise the supply through a dealer.

It was always fun having these pompous buyers come on the line, we'd like you to tender for this and this is the hundred and one hoops that we'd like you to jump through, plus we'd like a year to pay for it and we want to buy it at cost + 5%. Or it would be, we sent you a tender by post last month, we don't seem to have had a reply to it, "we decided not to tender for it Mr.Buyer". What do you mean you're not going to tender for it, "what part of not interested do you not understand", but you haven't replied to use to state that you're not going to tender, "correct and we have no intention of wasting time or postage telling you that we aren't going to tender, now, was there anything else?".

Then you would hear the coughing and spluttering, as they got rather indignant, as mister puffed up buyer of self importance went a nice shade of red. The funny thing was, that much of the time they needed or wanted our kit. It was the best, the most reliable, we had next day delivery on parts, a fairly no quibble warranty backed up by a nationwide dealer network. Of course those things all cost money and you need to make a decent margin to be able to maintain them.

After a short time, we'd get a call, saying that they really wanted to have a price for our kit, to which the answer was, "send us a request for a quote and will reply with a price". We'd send them a quote back with 'X' price, delivery via your local dealer, to your warehouse and PDI'd. The sensible ones would then just send in a purchase order and that would be job sorted.

But there was always the odd one, that would start putting stuff on the purchase order that wasn't agreed. So it would go in the round file. Then we'd get a call, where's my order "not as agreed, we've decided not to supply", but you can't, I've sent you a purchase order "we decide where and to whom we supply and we have declined the order". Followed by a quick call to the dealer, to warn him that if he supplies the company/utility, that he is on his own, no goodwill support, only what was in our standard terms and conditions. Then another quick call to all the area managers to warn them to let their major dealers know what the situation was and steer clear.

It was always enjoyable to put some of these upstart buyers back in their box, who seemed to enjoy making life as unpleasant as possible for their suppliers. And if they were as much of a pita before they purchased, god knows what they were going to be like afterwards and you could tell that it was probably the culture of the company.

So, your comment about choosing your tenders wisely, made me smile.

**lorraine** · 17-05-2012, 09:59 PM

It only takes one bad apple, out for themselves and not for the company and then they use the same tactics to follow in their daily life.

**Baron von Lotsov** · 17-05-2012, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by Besoeker

Another deprecating comment. I don't understand mathematics or physics and now I'm further down the line whan it comes to selling stuff?

The telephone conversation used to be that way in my field.
Times have moved on.
Bids for projects of significant value go out out to an electronic tendering process.
Documentation can be upwards of 100Meg just to qualify to be on the bidders list.
This is particularly the case in the utilities sector. But you know, going in, that there will be a helluva lot of work involved in getting past that first hurdle.
All of that part is done electronically. And it's a lot of work. It makes you selective about what you bid for.

Get beyond that and you might be invited to tender if you meet the requirements of being a suitably qualified supplier.
You have all your ducks in a row on anything from ensuring that you deal with suppliers who have a clean bill of health regarding human rights to waste disposal.
That's just to make it the bidder list

Get there and then you have a whole set of other documents defining everything from performance specifications to the timber used in packing cases.

Get beyond that, submit a compliant and competitive offer and, if considered, telephone negotiations might begin.
It's the last stage. Not the first.

I'm not trying to depreciate you, but you aren’t the managing director or anything so I was just trying to clear up a potential misinterpretation. Managing directors have to think in terms of the big picture, whereas your job is to see that it is done. I do actually appreciate what you are telling me, because working in one of these organisations is something I have so far managed to avoid doing. I'm learning from it, and what you say seems to fit in with my deductions of what it is like these days. I'm peering through my telescope looking at a strange planet and figuring out what it is like from the data received on my computers, while you are actually on the surface in your space suit. A 100 Meg of data is just crazy though. No wonder I wouldn't get a job in your place. I'd be the blemish that would forfeit your contracts!