By John DiPisa, Founder and CEO, Bid Desk Analytics –
City, county and state offices across the country are guilty of a filthy habit: they get mired in dirt daily. Yes, grease, grime and spills (what were you thinking?).
While it may not be scandalous, it is an expensive problem. In fact, the public pays more than $1.5 billion a year to clean up these everyday messes.
For janitorial supply companies, however – and especially those that bid intelligently on RFQs to supply school districts and city/county/state offices with brooms, mops, soaps, detergents and other cleaning supplies – it can be a lucrative problem to solve.
Cleaning Up at Bid Time
So how does a janitorial supply company go about entering the winning bid to get in on this messy business? Competition is stiff, and it’s not as easy as you might think.
Take, for example, Stratus Building Solutions, a young janitorial services and supply company that offers green products. Stratus (not a client) could have a difficult time winning a generically-written bid for, say, floor cleaning solutions. Stratus’s competitive advantage — environmentally friendly cleaning supplies — may not show up in the language of a bid request.
The words “green” and “environmentally friendly” are unlikely to appear in contract language that hasn’t been rewritten in five, or maybe even 15, years. And, common wisdom suggests that green products are likely to cost more than their chemically-driven counterparts.
Clearly, if Stratus bid on price alone, it would likely lose.
Gaining a Competitive Advantage
That’s where Bid Desk Analytics comes in.
For more than 30 years, we’ve studied the public funded entities that spend billions annually on furniture, food service, maintenance/repair, handheld and power tools, as well as classroom, office and janitorial supplies.
We know the contract expiration dates up to 18 months in advance, so a company can calculate its production capabilities and profit margin needs before placing a bid. And, we also know exactly how much the last winning company bid on a contract, so a company can quote a lower price without leaving money on the table.
Bid Desk Analytics can also help identify the schools and government offices likely to be most receptive to a new product. Not every city or state, for example, is equally interested in environmentally friendly products. A school district in California, which has passed a law banning plastic grocery bags, may be more interested in green janitorial supply products than a school district in Texas, where voters are more interested in preserving fishing and hunting rights.
What’s more, we also know how to help change the RFQ language to favor a company or supplier, which can prove to be especially important if a company or product is new to the market. Check out our case studies to learn how we’ve helped rewrite generic contract language to give specific companies an advantage, and have helped write new products into bid language, as well.
And, if you are a janitorial supply manufacturer interested in learning more about how to bid intelligently on public funded contracts or a janitorial supply distributor who wants to forge an exclusive strategic partnership to win more contracts on behalf of your company and suppliers, contact us today.
