Preparing to tender
If you are participating in a tender opportunity, the following pointers may be useful when when preparing your tender response:
- Read the documents carefully to make sure you’ve understood our requirements fully and are clear about what the University requires returning as part of your tender submission.
- Identify key dates such as the tender closing date, the closing date for questions and the date for commencement of the contract.
- There will be an opportunity to ask questions, so you can ask us to clarify if you find parts of our requirements unclear, or you do not fully understand them.
- Allow yourself enough time to prepare a high quality response and take the time to make your written response stand out from your competitors. The quality of your responses to our questions will be critical to whether you will be successful.
- Provide your best price in your tender response, as we can only make decisions on the information you submit. We very rarely negotiate on price in a tender situation.
- Follow any further instructions such as word count limits, and only submit the information we have requested. Additional information that is submitted will not be considered when we are evaluating your response.
- Carefully check that you’ve submitted all the documents requested prior to the closing date and time.
How to use Delta (our online tendering portal)
The Procurement Team uses the Delta e-sourcing system to run its high value procurement exercises. Where the opportunity is being advertised, the tender advert will link to the Delta eSourcing system where you will be able to find the tender documents.
This is a free to use service and there is no cost to tenderers; Delta may separately offer chargeable premium services, but these are not needed to access University opportunities.
Terms and conditions
Opportunities which are tendered will contain a set of terms and conditions that will apply to the relevant contract. The University has various terms and conditions for supplies, services and consultancy. For works contracts, one of the NEC4 Form of Contracts will be used.
Low value orders will normally be placed on the University’s standard Terms and Conditions of Purchase.