When looking for RFPs you will come to find out that a large percentage come from IT/hardware, lab equipment, telecommunications, furniture, and last but definitely not least, construction. Construction is right up there with IT and medical RFPs as far as how many of them are on the market. The variety of construction projects to be procured is vast and hit all fields within the construction industry. Local RFPs for your area of work will be abundant, and federal RFPs within the construction industry will provide your business with as many opportunities as it can handle. Construction is one of the single best industries to be within if you are looking to competitively bid. Before entering the construction bidding process make sure to read through this blog and familiarize yourself with some common terms and processes that are routine within these types of bids.

First off, when an agency wants to procure a construction service or product they will release a bid solicitation to the market. This solicitation is public and provided to whoever wishes to start bidding on the project. This is where bidding can become very competitive, as it is public information and available to as many construction firms and contractors who wish to win the bid.

Many of these construction bids will not only be released to the public, but also sent to specific groups of contractors, general contractors, and subcontractors. The contractors who receive these solicitations specifically, can assume that their services are favored, in which they may have already performed a service or sold items to the soliciting agency in the past. Do not let this process detour you from submitting a bid to the soliciting agency. Submitting bids is a good thing, and in most cases will only help you publicize your businesses name and possibly win you a bid in to the future with an agency who at one time may have not been interested in procuring services or products from you.

Once the procuring agency has received final bids from contractors and subcontractors alike, they will decide upon which business will be awarded the bid. Once this bid is awarded a legally enforceable contract will be created, which finalizes the decision that your business will be the one performing the services and no one else. Also, this legally obligates your business to perform the services. If you happen to bid on a project, win the bid, and sign the contract to perform the job, and do not have the sufficient skills or products in order to perform the job, legal action can be taken.

There are two very common ways in which an agency will start a project that they want procured. The first method we will call traditional procurement. This process starts with the agency having an architect develop construction documents. The architect will prepare the documents by industry drafting standards provided by the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), for example. The architect will then make these documents public and provide them to general contractors and subcontractors who will bid on the specific project and estimate what they believe will be the total cost. Some projects will require multiple subcontractors to perform their unique skills within any given part of the construction process.