SMEs urged to ‘go for growth:trade local’

A group of experts have given local SMEs in Coventry and Warwickshire an insight into how they can bid for millions of pounds worth of work with the big organisations and businesses in their area.

The initiative to inform SMEs about how they should go about bidding for major contracts is being led by Louise Bennett, the chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce (CWCC), with support and advice from Coventry City Council, the NHS, the local LEP and the LEVC.

This group of procurement specialists told the audience at the launch event of the ‘Go for Growth: Trade Local’ campaign that there were a whole series of tactics they could adopt to ensure that their bids stood out from their competitors, giving their business the very best chance of landing a big contract with large companies or government bodies.

Louise Bennett said:” ‘Go for Growth : Trade Local’ has been devised to get more companies across the patch doing business with one another, making the most of the goods and  services available in the region. We also want to help small and medium sized companies to do business with major organisations in the region, and this event, with senior procurement professionals was extremely well attended and very informative.”

“There were several pointers to take away from it. The first was, and this sounds obvious, to answer the questions asked during the tendering process – the feedback from our speakers was that it is amazing how many firms don’t do this. Our experts also urged businesses to make themselves stand out and seek out opportunities from big organisations because there is definitely a desire to to procure locally.”

“For us it is important the ‘Go for Growth: Trade Local’ sees more and more companies across the area trading with each other and trying to keep as much of the wealth generated here as possible.”