Being made to pay for tendering is simply unfair

Knowing that design consultancies are constantly striving to find new business, I was disheartened to discover, this week that, while I pay for specialist business development support and subscribe to on-line information sources of new business leads, I had to fork out additional funds to tender for a project within the education sector this week.

Not only do tenders pull our resources from fee-earning work, the laborious tendering process is always a consideration before putting ourselves forward. To be asked to cough up £50 just to complete the initial questionnaire is, I think, unfair and unjust – most government tenders receive in excess of 100 replies.

Is this just a cost-saving exercise to provide the incumbent and two other agencies’ fees for a paid pitch or is it the client’s way of covering their own costs? I would like to think it is the former, but believe it is the latter.

We all spend too much time debating the unpaid pitch conundrum to have to pay for tendering too.

Tony Williams, Creative director, K4 Creative, London W11