Emerging best practice

Pre-Bid

Bid stage

During contract

Market engagement: Maximise engagement through early and ongoing discussions and listening. Discuss prospects, inform the market of plans and use knowledge to outline what is to be provided. Allow suppliers to influence, understand and prepare to bid for work.

Consider contract structure. There are opportunities to be innovative. This could include competition between lots, formal benchmarking and allocation of work depending on performance between suppliers.

Market engagement: Keep all bidders in the game as long as possible.

Agree all core contract terms before signature.

Market engagement: Continue to keep the market warm to help sustain a credible set of possible suppliers and benchmark performance. This keeps alive the threat of leaving a contract with alternatives kept open. Consider commercial trends and the impact that shifting markets and technology has on the relative power of suppliers and government.

Benchmark changes to the model and market and understand thresholds for acceptable performance.

Take strategic decisions that balance, alongside other factors, the need for competitive tension.

Reward good performance by, for example, varying contract volumes between suppliers.