Participating in public-sector bidding can be daunting for businesses owners who are just starting out. For these business owners, one of the most challenging aspects of government contracting is simply finding the opportunities they want to bid on. While searching for consulting opportunities in the State of Michigan can be challenging, there are many ways to make the process easier. But before we explore those options, let’s take a closer look at why and how government agencies in Michigan publish consulting bids.
Consulting services are often used when government agencies require the input of industry-specific experts for new public works projects. The use of consultants helps to ensure the proper development, implementation and completion of each project. Government agencies at every level post bids for consulting services that can cover a variety of specialties, including urban planning, construction, environmental testing, healthcare, IT implementation and security.
One of the biggest hurdles in winning a government consulting bid is knowing what kind of opportunities exist and where to find them. With so many agencies posting bids across the State of Michigan, identifying the opportunities that pertain to your business can be challenging, but if you know how and where to find the right bids the processes can be both enjoyable and profitable.
Who is Posting Bids?
In the State of Michigan, each government agency is responsible for making their bids accessible to interested businesses. Most of these bids will be posted to agency websites but there are many agencies that still publish their opportunities in newspapers and other print media formats. These print opportunities can be hard to locate so they are not the ideal place to start, especially since the majority of bids in the state are posted online. Below are a few government websites that have posted consulting service bids on their sites in the past:
Where to Start?
The first place most businesses start their search for consulting bids in Michigan is with the Department of Technology, Management and Budget. Through the DTMB Contract Connect website, businesses can register with the state as a vendor and review the policies of the state’s procurement process. Businesses can also take a closer look at the state’s MWBE programs to see if they qualify for any of the available certification, which can provide an advantage in the bid process.
Through the states SIGMA Vendor Self Service (VSS) portal, businesses can gain access to useful information about past and current bids, including preliminary awards, bids results and contract activities. This is also the site where registered users can search through active bids using filters to categorize bids by keyword, category type and status.
The SIGMA VSS is used by many government agencies across the United States to post bid opportunities. Narrowing down the bids posted on a VSS portal to the ones that are relevant to your business can require some trial and error if you are a new user. Because the SIGMA VSS portal system is used by several state agencies, it is a good idea to become familiar with the systems quirks, especially if manually searching through bids is going to be the primary way you find opportunities.
Making the Most of Your Valuable Time
One way you can streamline the process of finding relevant bids is to partner with a bid intelligence company that can handle the process of searching through the hundreds and thousands of bids posted by government agencies each day, in order to locate the ones that match your business interests.
Bid intelligence companies have the staff and resources in place to search through all the bids posted by government agencies in Michigan and across the country from all sources including newspapers and websites. Each day, these bid services research, sort and filter opportunities by location and industry, then notify their clients with the details of the bids that are relevant to them.
This streamlined bid-finding process can help relieve the hassle and stress associated with hunting for bids, and free up more time for you to focus on writing proposals, submitting to government agencies and winning lucrative contracts.
Kevin McClintock | BidNet.com