Tenders from the customer - part two, positive
In the first part of the topic, I tried to show the organizational specifics of the apparent opacity of tenders. As it turned out from the reaction, the general mood among the reader about this topic is generally depressing (upd .: even a very constructive post appeared in the sandbox on behalf of our visas-a-vi, I will debate there during the day). Except for one letter in lichku and several comments under the publication, no one seems to see a positive in this situation.
Honestly, I would not have thought about the “positive” perspective if it were not for the letter Alex_Mukh . He managed to share the experience very juicy and weighty. Unfortunately, Alex does not have enough karma to write even a comment (I hint at possible applause for him as a coauthor), because I broke the text of his letter into quotes and posted it in my verse below.
The first part of this publication will be devoted to a brief overview of the market, so that the reader does not get the impression that trillions of rubles are spent on tenders as they should. The second is the opinion of the customer (my personal one), how things really are in IT niches where tenders are being played out.
')
So, let's try to look at the situation differently: what good tenders have brought.
By the way, yes - even though I want to start about the pleasant, but there is nowhere to put something unpleasant. Procurement of institutions fully or partially managed by the state is standardized by the Federal Law 94 (dies out) and Federal Law 223 (it has not yet passed a year, how it works). Commercial companies do not differ from state employees - they copy the Federal Law and conduct tenders in almost the same way, only usually just slightly simplifying their work, since not required to follow the letter of the law thoroughly.
So, in the old, in the new laws, all tenders are divided into open, closed, and also “purchase from a single supplier” (EP, holder, monopolist, authoritative / licensed without options, etc.)
We, the customers, are often kept in tight knit in the context of open procurement procedures (ie, information about the transaction from the plan to the announcement of the contractor is public) and a decrease in the share of purchases from the EP. We suffer mainly with telecommunication operators: it is difficult to reject various numbering capacities, autonomous systems, physical communication lines. Although not - there is 1C and Consultant Plus :)
However, knowing that only one participant will come to the tender, we go all the way from describing the need to concluding a contract for the sake of reporting. In general, with the EP, the country is rotten - they are taken from them, because there is no alternative or lazy. Statistics from the site zakupki.gov.ru shows a steady 30 +% for this niche. I will say that the EPs are mainly among telecom operators, and there - most of it is OPSOS and fixed telephony, so the abolition of mobile slavery (input is still being delayed, but the end of the project is visible in 2014) severely knits this category. It’s almost impossible to enter this niche as a competitor, but becoming an EP is very easy for those who write soft, just indicate the appropriate nuance in the contract (the code cannot be changed either by the customer or by third parties).
Probably, in addition to working with EP, I will write down the passionate desire we have to burn all monopolies with their slow and rusty attitude to business in Gehenna (they don’t go to tenders, they exchange primary documents through the lip, tariffs differ from real life like the current dollar rate from course in times of stagnation). We wouldn’t be bothered by the standards of work with EP, we wouldn’t even steam ourselves, and so we began to gnash our teeth and think how to jump off contracts with them ...
Purchases where an alternative is provided are called “open” (requests for quotations / quotations, bids, tenders). I specifically checked the procurement statistics according to zakupki.gov.ru (data for 2012). There you can understand who is selling really and who is not. To make it clear: “open tender” is when the contract amount is above 10 million rubles, and “other” - everything is there, but most likely, smaller purchases. From the first two pictures we can conclude: there is really no one to sell yourself.
As can be seen, the volume of purchases is conducted by natural monopolies (enterprises of the oil and gas industry, Russian Railways, Russian Post, Rostelecom, etc.), SUEs, enterprises where the state has an interest of 50% + 1 share or more, and utilities.
How to work with these categories of customers showed tri_botinka in my LJ. I ask those who wish to go there - it is clearly written, I, as a frame from a state corporation (a commercial structure, some of which are regulated by the state) cannot disclose the topic in such detail ... In my opinion, there is no market, it means the customer will remain dense and passive. But in any case, the need for IT is surely all and they are repeated from year to year. So you can knock if you want.
How many of these IT needs are on the market? The answer “in the forehead” can be taken from the same procurement site. There is no direct picture on the site, but some conclusions will be made. I collected all the areas of procurement from 2011 to 2013 (August), except for the supply of IT equipment.
Formed three groups:
1) software license delivery
2) IT consulting
3) service (outsourcing)
Outsourcing , according to the media, should grow unrealistically cool. We look: since 2011, the growth is noticeable, yes, but today it is already August of 2013, but somehow there is no strong growth. Bubble? I will not say for the situation in the country, but as a forced use of outsourcing, I’ll inform you: service and maintenance are not able and do not want to do. Rather, they do not want what they do not know how.
For two years, a well-known integrator had to be taught that equipment maintenance is not just signing an agreement with an engineer’s schedule, but real visits, inspections, eliminating jambs, replacing failed or buggy components of the fleet being serviced, simply because it’s necessary. subscribed to it. The other guys from the top five in the niche were terribly offended when I handed over the printing subsystem to them for maintenance, asking them to inspect each device and replace the resource parts at the beginning of the contract (how can this be every second stove with rollers for replacement? Aaa!) However, everything is beautiful in the contract: we will come, check, replace, and provide.
Service providers, as practice shows, have not heard of maintenance and repair at all (what kind of maintenance plans? Breaks - we will arrive!); service desks are being held, but there is no service approach: the usual help desk, the recorder of appeals on soap / telephone; what SLA is - they write, but to comply, to report and - most importantly - to pay penalties categorically against, immediately take their eyes off to the side; the staff is not motivated to do business well (today here, tomorrow there, the main excuse: “I do not know the infrastructure and rules of the customer”), often of very low qualifications; personnel turnover - only one will get used to your site, so you immediately get settled in where you are quieter and again teach the new; the traditional service “providing the customer with information about the release of current versions of the serviced technological systems” is seen in the contract when you push the newsletter about the new service pack or update the firmware on the device with the questions “what's new? tested? what problems will we have removed if we move on? ”
All this, if there were no tenders, I would not have learned to demand. And thanks to the specifics of my company (technical performer and expert most often combined in my face) I learned (against the background of the market) to write TK, draw up procedures for accepting results, operate with niche GOST, TU, etc., in general, bend the requirements so so that "the enemy does not climb." But not to block competition (we really need it and are useful), but to protect our interests and sift out the “leftist”.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Outsourcing is hard dumping. Is always. So it seems to suppliers that they will be buying more. But usually it after a few iterations it also goes sideways:
Consulting is manna from heaven for those who feed on it. Orders are either empty or thick, because they run around regularly and, usually, half-starved with delusional ideas. For those who really know how to do efficiently and on time, you have to stand in line naturally. In general, statistics show that the niche is not growing significantly (930% this year is the execution of a plan to modernize several monster organizations, an order of the government).
In general, the cornerstone of any consulting: a clear understanding of the task and resource planning. Sell ​​man hours. It means that they should be allocated enough to achieve the goal set by the customer. They make mistakes both with sufficiency and with purpose.
When I buy consulting, I am very cautious: I protect the office’s money as much as possible, cutting the project into stages with a clear description of the expected results and the possibility of terminating the contract without payment if the result does not work; knowing that with deadlines they usually pull, but they do everything in the last days, I try to put cruel penalties for delays; I necessarily include the warranty and post-warranty service period in the contract so that the contractor does not merge, but completes his flaws.
At the tender, it is almost impossible to fight real competitors — they do not see the point of “standing side by side, if the prize is one”. Work on the preparation of the tender: the same criterion for the feasibility of participation in the contractor and the organization of its conduct by the customer. A big sum is needed here - millions of dollars in the lot. For a trifle of several million rubles, no one comes.
In general, one gets the feeling that in Russian niches (development, service, consulting) there are only destitute people - something is not completed, not covered, absent. I write it off to youth, because if you dig right, you will have to create a lot of jobs that perform indirect work (design, testing, analysis, optimization, accounting, auditing the correctness and quality of all of the above, etc.). Then the supplier will be scaling, growth. But these are additional mouths, taxes, in general, a burden.
And here we are with their tenders bring down prices.
Yes, without infrastructure consultants hard. It is difficult to spread among customers when there are few shots. It is difficult to constantly run around for new orders, and not to sit like scientific research institutes, having developed one topic for decades. But this is the reason for development. And the synergy between us - customers and performers - arose precisely because of the tenders.
Let Alex, as an illustration - and finally - speak out:
Honestly, I would not have thought about the “positive” perspective if it were not for the letter Alex_Mukh . He managed to share the experience very juicy and weighty. Unfortunately, Alex does not have enough karma to write even a comment (I hint at possible applause for him as a coauthor), because I broke the text of his letter into quotes and posted it in my verse below.
The first part of this publication will be devoted to a brief overview of the market, so that the reader does not get the impression that trillions of rubles are spent on tenders as they should. The second is the opinion of the customer (my personal one), how things really are in IT niches where tenders are being played out.
')
So, let's try to look at the situation differently: what good tenders have brought.
Sole suppliers
Alex: I also represent the side of the customer. I work in a corporation (even enter the Fortune 500 and sponsor Formula 1), but we have the same procedures. So I understand and share.
Tenders are a given. Now there will always be talk about the fact that they are no longer needed are meaningless. We are not asked. Tenders (as a rule) are useful, no matter how troublesome they are to deal with ... Except for cases when they demand to hold a tender for the purchase of, for example, telephone lines from the only telephone company in the country, this is of course absurd.
By the way, yes - even though I want to start about the pleasant, but there is nowhere to put something unpleasant. Procurement of institutions fully or partially managed by the state is standardized by the Federal Law 94 (dies out) and Federal Law 223 (it has not yet passed a year, how it works). Commercial companies do not differ from state employees - they copy the Federal Law and conduct tenders in almost the same way, only usually just slightly simplifying their work, since not required to follow the letter of the law thoroughly.
So, in the old, in the new laws, all tenders are divided into open, closed, and also “purchase from a single supplier” (EP, holder, monopolist, authoritative / licensed without options, etc.)
We, the customers, are often kept in tight knit in the context of open procurement procedures (ie, information about the transaction from the plan to the announcement of the contractor is public) and a decrease in the share of purchases from the EP. We suffer mainly with telecommunication operators: it is difficult to reject various numbering capacities, autonomous systems, physical communication lines. Although not - there is 1C and Consultant Plus :)
However, knowing that only one participant will come to the tender, we go all the way from describing the need to concluding a contract for the sake of reporting. In general, with the EP, the country is rotten - they are taken from them, because there is no alternative or lazy. Statistics from the site zakupki.gov.ru shows a steady 30 +% for this niche. I will say that the EPs are mainly among telecom operators, and there - most of it is OPSOS and fixed telephony, so the abolition of mobile slavery (input is still being delayed, but the end of the project is visible in 2014) severely knits this category. It’s almost impossible to enter this niche as a competitor, but becoming an EP is very easy for those who write soft, just indicate the appropriate nuance in the contract (the code cannot be changed either by the customer or by third parties).
Probably, in addition to working with EP, I will write down the passionate desire we have to burn all monopolies with their slow and rusty attitude to business in Gehenna (they don’t go to tenders, they exchange primary documents through the lip, tariffs differ from real life like the current dollar rate from course in times of stagnation). We wouldn’t be bothered by the standards of work with EP, we wouldn’t even steam ourselves, and so we began to gnash our teeth and think how to jump off contracts with them ...
Open tenders
Alex: Tenders are always a duel with an unknown outcome. It’s not so easy to push the right company at the tender, even if she herself wrote TK. I have no special problems with TK and cost estimation, but the development of technical selection criteria is a big problem. Our tenders are held in 2 rounds and if several offers are held according to technical criteria, the next round is stupidly choosing the cheapest with all the ensuing consequences. So we need protection just from dumping.
Purchases where an alternative is provided are called “open” (requests for quotations / quotations, bids, tenders). I specifically checked the procurement statistics according to zakupki.gov.ru (data for 2012). There you can understand who is selling really and who is not. To make it clear: “open tender” is when the contract amount is above 10 million rubles, and “other” - everything is there, but most likely, smaller purchases. From the first two pictures we can conclude: there is really no one to sell yourself.
As can be seen, the volume of purchases is conducted by natural monopolies (enterprises of the oil and gas industry, Russian Railways, Russian Post, Rostelecom, etc.), SUEs, enterprises where the state has an interest of 50% + 1 share or more, and utilities.
How to work with these categories of customers showed tri_botinka in my LJ. I ask those who wish to go there - it is clearly written, I, as a frame from a state corporation (a commercial structure, some of which are regulated by the state) cannot disclose the topic in such detail ... In my opinion, there is no market, it means the customer will remain dense and passive. But in any case, the need for IT is surely all and they are repeated from year to year. So you can knock if you want.
Market volume
How many of these IT needs are on the market? The answer “in the forehead” can be taken from the same procurement site. There is no direct picture on the site, but some conclusions will be made. I collected all the areas of procurement from 2011 to 2013 (August), except for the supply of IT equipment.
Formed three groups:
1) software license delivery
2) IT consulting
3) service (outsourcing)
Outsourcing , according to the media, should grow unrealistically cool. We look: since 2011, the growth is noticeable, yes, but today it is already August of 2013, but somehow there is no strong growth. Bubble? I will not say for the situation in the country, but as a forced use of outsourcing, I’ll inform you: service and maintenance are not able and do not want to do. Rather, they do not want what they do not know how.
For two years, a well-known integrator had to be taught that equipment maintenance is not just signing an agreement with an engineer’s schedule, but real visits, inspections, eliminating jambs, replacing failed or buggy components of the fleet being serviced, simply because it’s necessary. subscribed to it. The other guys from the top five in the niche were terribly offended when I handed over the printing subsystem to them for maintenance, asking them to inspect each device and replace the resource parts at the beginning of the contract (how can this be every second stove with rollers for replacement? Aaa!) However, everything is beautiful in the contract: we will come, check, replace, and provide.
Service providers, as practice shows, have not heard of maintenance and repair at all (what kind of maintenance plans? Breaks - we will arrive!); service desks are being held, but there is no service approach: the usual help desk, the recorder of appeals on soap / telephone; what SLA is - they write, but to comply, to report and - most importantly - to pay penalties categorically against, immediately take their eyes off to the side; the staff is not motivated to do business well (today here, tomorrow there, the main excuse: “I do not know the infrastructure and rules of the customer”), often of very low qualifications; personnel turnover - only one will get used to your site, so you immediately get settled in where you are quieter and again teach the new; the traditional service “providing the customer with information about the release of current versions of the serviced technological systems” is seen in the contract when you push the newsletter about the new service pack or update the firmware on the device with the questions “what's new? tested? what problems will we have removed if we move on? ”
All this, if there were no tenders, I would not have learned to demand. And thanks to the specifics of my company (technical performer and expert most often combined in my face) I learned (against the background of the market) to write TK, draw up procedures for accepting results, operate with niche GOST, TU, etc., in general, bend the requirements so so that "the enemy does not climb." But not to block competition (we really need it and are useful), but to protect our interests and sift out the “leftist”.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Outsourcing is hard dumping. Is always. So it seems to suppliers that they will be buying more. But usually it after a few iterations it also goes sideways:
Alex: Tenders reduce costs. Suppliers are quite satisfied with dealer discounts. Service prices have fallen by half - although this is not very good, because dumping service providers have not left themselves any freedom of maneuver.
Consulting is manna from heaven for those who feed on it. Orders are either empty or thick, because they run around regularly and, usually, half-starved with delusional ideas. For those who really know how to do efficiently and on time, you have to stand in line naturally. In general, statistics show that the niche is not growing significantly (930% this year is the execution of a plan to modernize several monster organizations, an order of the government).
Alex: Tenders are a powerful device for influencing suppliers of goods and services. I don’t know about you, but we have talk about professionalism (especially among creatives) when and when you don’t want to write projects, estimates, contracts, work plans, etc. etc. "You simply hire us and we will do everything in the best possible way," and then it turns out that the product is not ready, the deadlines are not met, the budget is either exceeded or not mastered - and the customer who does not know what he wants is to blame for everything.
In general, the cornerstone of any consulting: a clear understanding of the task and resource planning. Sell ​​man hours. It means that they should be allocated enough to achieve the goal set by the customer. They make mistakes both with sufficiency and with purpose.
When I buy consulting, I am very cautious: I protect the office’s money as much as possible, cutting the project into stages with a clear description of the expected results and the possibility of terminating the contract without payment if the result does not work; knowing that with deadlines they usually pull, but they do everything in the last days, I try to put cruel penalties for delays; I necessarily include the warranty and post-warranty service period in the contract so that the contractor does not merge, but completes his flaws.
At the tender, it is almost impossible to fight real competitors — they do not see the point of “standing side by side, if the prize is one”. Work on the preparation of the tender: the same criterion for the feasibility of participation in the contractor and the organization of its conduct by the customer. A big sum is needed here - millions of dollars in the lot. For a trifle of several million rubles, no one comes.
Alex: In itself, the fact that any purchase is preceded by hemorrhoids of the tender means that part of the hotelok will be forgotten.
In general, one gets the feeling that in Russian niches (development, service, consulting) there are only destitute people - something is not completed, not covered, absent. I write it off to youth, because if you dig right, you will have to create a lot of jobs that perform indirect work (design, testing, analysis, optimization, accounting, auditing the correctness and quality of all of the above, etc.). Then the supplier will be scaling, growth. But these are additional mouths, taxes, in general, a burden.
And here we are with their tenders bring down prices.
Yes, without infrastructure consultants hard. It is difficult to spread among customers when there are few shots. It is difficult to constantly run around for new orders, and not to sit like scientific research institutes, having developed one topic for decades. But this is the reason for development. And the synergy between us - customers and performers - arose precisely because of the tenders.
Let Alex, as an illustration - and finally - speak out:
Whatever professional suppliers are - it is useful to take them out of the comfort zone from time to time. The competition is growing, so that the holy place will not remain empty.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/191364/
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