By: Thendo Ratshitanga


No effort and expense was spared in ensuring the proposal or presentation was a masterpiece amalgam of the most effective communication interventions and which was bound to deliver exactly in accordance with the client's brief.

That was a time when Request For Proposals (RFPs) were clear and concise, with much forethought having gone into the absolute necessity of issuing the call for proposals in the first place.

Those were the halcyon days when there was mutual respect between the parties that called for proposals and the professional outfits that responded.

It was an era when the call for tenders was treated as serious business. The time, money and effort put in by tenderers - many tenders contain a request for costly design work - was not to be trifled with.

Short-listing was no easy task. To make it to a short-list was a great achievement by itself. Judging of entries was meticulous, thorough and devoid of any chance of accusations being leveled for interference and influence.

If your company lost in the final round, it was only because the successful bidder's proposal was only a hair's breadth better. Losing proposals were still brilliant enough to be submitted for awards such as the Prisa competition.

Sadly, times have changed for the worse.

Nowadays, there would appear to be scant regard and respect for the professional status of the marketing communications industry, especially within State-funded departments and enterprises.

RFPs are issued - and withdrawn - willy-nilly. When tenders are cancelled, there is no apology, let alone compensation for time, effort and monetary expenses incurred.

With the number of RFPs issued each week, the investment in finances and human resources made by marketing communications agencies on proposals is a major impediment to the sustainable success of a number of agencies.

It is certainly a necessary aspect of the business to spend money in marketing efforts. However, when that cost is driven by inefficiencies and flawed procurement processes, it becomes crippling - and discouraging - for companies.

It is not uncommon for agencies to spend in the region of R500 000 annually in responding to Government and private sector tenders. The cost includes the amount of time spent by client-billing staff in writing tenders, packaging information, travel and related costs.

Very often requests for tenders are rushed because clients do not plan their requirements properly, and there are six specific areas which demonstrate everything that is wrong with this process.

Firstly, the most unsettling practice is when tenders are invited and companies put in tremendous energy and effort - then to be withdrawn shortly before the closing date.

This contemptible scenario is being played out with increasing frequency. The latest such tender disaster took place a week ago. A major parastatal had issued a request for tender, briefed about 40 agency representatives, received payment of R1500 from each agency and then cancelled the tender two days before submission with a feeble generic excuse relating to change of requirements. One company is said to have spent at least R30 000 when the tender was pulled.

The frequent withdrawals of tenders is largely a result of bad planning. It is unfair that the cost of such incompetence and gross negligence should be passed onto marketing communications agencies.

Secondly, a disconcerting practice that is gaining notoriety is when some organisations, primarily Government departments and parastatals, request tenders to be submitted as a ploy to solicit ideas for their own implementation or for implementation by incompetent agencies they have appointed.

Again there is no payment for the creativity and intellectual capital that is presented. No wonder many agencies now go through the motions of tendering with a sense of adhering to formality rather than actual commitment. Often the most junior staff - rather than client-billing staff who have the necessary knowledge and experience - are used to prepare proposals and presentations.

Thirdly, some organizations ask for urgent tender submissions at the last minute - on a Friday afternoon for a tender closing the following Monday at noon - merely to meet their procurement requirement for three quotes. In fact, in such instances, the preferred supplier would already have been identified.

The insufficient time that is often allowed for submission of tenders suggests that organisations are not really interested in quality when they issue RFPs. If you take infrastructure tenders, for example, they often take months and sometimes years to put together and the results are excellent inmost cases, resulting in actual delivery.

Fourthly, there is also the growing tendency for organizations to call for proposals before they have fully assessed their own communications requirements, thus causing further strain on agencies.

In one such instance two years ago, a company that had been awarded a tender by a large parastatal had spent about R200 000 to put together their bid. Despite being awarded the job and a team being put in place at additional costs, the contract was subsequently annulled.

I am of the view that organizations wanting companies to tender for marketing communications services should shortlist agencies on the basis of their credentials and in terms of how they satisfy their procurement requirements. Only when they are satisfied, should two agencies, or at the most three, be invited to pitch. The unsuccessful agency should be compulsorily compensated for the cost of pitching as it is common practice in other industries such as construction.

The introduction of such a practice will force Government departments and the private sector to be more stringent with their selection processes and to think more carefully about their requirements before issuing requests for tenders. The process will also allow agencies enough time to fully propose workable and relevant solutions for their potential new clients.

The last but not least issue that compounds the judging process problem is the fact that in most cases the adjudication process is led by procurement officers randomly chosen to make up a quota, rather than people skilled in marketing and communications. This places the bulk of the decision-making in the award of tenders outside the sphere of professional people, leading to wrong appointments at huge costs to the procuring organisations.

Finally, there is also a need to relook the frequency of tenders being called for. The opportunity for clients to interact with marketing communications agencies should focus on building long-term relationships where agencies can really begin to understand the organisation they serve and not have to pitch every 12 months or so.

Such tender processes do a major disservice to the procuring organisations - especially Government departments - and place a burden on them too as they have to invest management time and resources.

These Government departments have other more pressing issues and programmes to implement than spend time and resources every six to 12 months evaluating bids only because they made the wrong choice the last time a communications agency was appointed.

The frequent issuing of tenders should be viewed by the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and Auditor-General as fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Organisations must have stringent processes to evaluate bids and give sufficient time for agencies to submit their best effort.

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Tshirundu Communications was established following a strategic decision by the management teams of both Simeka TWS and Graphicor to purchase the two businesses from parent company, Adcorp Holdings Limited. This historic transaction has resulted in the new company becoming the biggest black-owned integrated marketing communications firm in the industry.- more....

[21 Apr 2008 09:48]

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