Many businesses, social enterprises and the community and voluntary sector find it intimidating dealing with public officials and bureaucracy.

Many of the concerns relate to the jargon used in procurement and by procurement officers. Have a look at the following tips for dealing with suppliers and please contact us if you can add to these….

1. Recognise that with smaller businesses, the person answering the ‘phone is often the Finance Director, the HR Specialist and the tea-maker as well as being the person trying to win your business.

2. Just because the business is on your doorstep, does not mean that it will deliver services or goods of a poorer quality than a business in Newcastle or outside of the area. As a professional, you have the ability to specify and receive goods and services at the right quality for the right price.

3. Acknowledge that form-filling, while it is necessary, does not come naturally to certain business sectors. Construction and manufacturing sectors often have a workforce with the right skills profile for successful contract completion but do not enjoy the process of submitting tender responses.

4. Businesses are often worried about requesting feedback. They have every right to ask for feedback on their performance and feedback should be provided that is constructive and useful.

- You need not feel embarrassed that you can’t answer all their questions. Questions around price do not need to be disclosed and you must protect any commercial in-confidence information.

- It is useful to have the scoring matrices in front of you and to let the business know where they came in terms of rank, in comparison to the highest and lowest scores.

- If they didn’t answer a question in enough detail or left it blank – explain to them that next time they should provide full and detailed responses.

- Many people do not realise that if they fail to be invited to tender after completing a PQQ, that they do not have a right to feedback or appeal. Many public sector organisations are now giving businesses feedback at PQQ stage upon request, though.