1. Bob Browning Bronze

    MD at Textor Webmasters Ltd

    25 January 2006 09:19am

    avatar I just met with a prospect who has a brand new web site with a very comprehensive CMS, but who wants to replace it.  It cost them £7k last summer, and this is a small organisation for whom £7k down the tubes is no small matter.

    They went out to bid and got three bids, £5k, £15k and £30k.    They went for the low bidder who installed a CMS monster and has provided very little since then in the way of support.  

    They asked what I would quote to replace the system and I had to say that with design our quote would have been in the £15k region at least if not £20k.   

    We were not involved in the original bid but I think this is a fairly normal situation.  We are always aware that whenever we are in a competitive bidding situation there is likely to be a kamakazi bidder.  We never address this in any way in our quote or presentation.  

    Does anyone have a technique for pre-empting such bidders at the presentation stage?

  2. Tony Addison Gold

    Commercial Director at Free Rein Ltd

    26 January 2006 08:58am

    Tony-20Addison-20website.jpg Hi Bob

    I cannot agree more.  We are a small Internet Solutions company whose charges are at the more economic end of the range but pride ourselves on giving the client what the want and need AND the follow-up support.  We are in competition with many big names and so start off at a disadvantage. Our solutions start at £5K for web CMS but the system support most digital channels. Again we most certainly weren't involved with your prospect.

    How do I know for sure? One thing we now put forward is the number of our clients who, having placed one project with us, have come back for not just upgrades but second, third etc solutions for different projects. It has now reached the stage where the number of clients with just one, static system can be counted on one hand - and every one of them have supplied references.  It is this supporting evidence that we put forward at tender stage to help give the customer confidence.

    Your company and ours are pretty much in the same space and I know how much reputation with existing clients has helped us. One other thing that helped us was the conscious move to supply clients with solutions that fit them and not produces they have to fit into. That is what changed our client base from SME to the full range of "one man bands" up to "blue chip" and overseas.

    If you ever find another way of curbing the "take the money and run" crowd, let me know though.  Every little helps these days.

    Best of luck with you bid this time.

    Tony Addison
    tony.addison@free-rein.net

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