This morning I attended an interesting event at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground with the theme of opportunities for SMEs around the up-coming Olympics. It was good to hear that we haven’t all missed the boat and that there are still plenty of chances to be had even as the Games get closer.
All the speakers were keen to emphasise the importance of registering with and creating a profile on www.competefor.com, the site for tendering opportunities around the Olympics “and other major contract opportunities”. It seems that the likes of Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police are committed to continuing to use the site to source suppliers after the Games are over as part of the Olympic legacy for business. Sounds good but something confused me so I asked a question…
How will this site, once the Olympics are over, fit with the existing site aimed at SMEs for public sector contracts, www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk, part of the Business Link offering? Were they intended to be complementary or was this going to be a case of small business owners having to register on two sites when a single portal would be much more efficient (from the user’s point of view, at least)?
I was surprised that so few people in the room, let alone the presenters, had heard of Contracts Finder but that meant it wasn’t surprising to find that there seems to have been no joining of the dots here.
There was some mumbling about the Government needing to review this situation but not in any way that gave me confidence that’s really on the agenda. With the big shake-up of business support provision, I’d have thought it the ideal time to streamline these things not add to the perpetual pattern of confusion.
I didn’t get a straightforward answer to my question so the upshot does seem to be that, if you want to make the most of public sector procurement opportunities, your best bet is, indeed, to register with and monitor both sites.
Web links:
www.competefor.com
www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk