DFID contracts in more depth

This intermediate level course will help you transform your organisation's performance when bidding for and delivering DFID contracts. If you want to increase your win:loss ratio, maximise your negotiation skills and approach to partnering or make that step from sub-contractor to prime, this course will show you how.

Commercial contracts provide new opportunities for NGOs to increase the reach and scale of their work and fulfil their strategic objectives. As DFID seek to broaden their supplier base and private sector consultancy firms face particular challenges, more and more NGOs are bidding for complex commercial contracts. However, this can come at a price, with heavy resource investments leading to unsuccessful bids or challenges during implementation.

Course structure 

Two days of live interactive online sessions, plus groupwork and facilitator coaching between the sessions. 

Who is it for?

This course is suitable for NGO staff who have attended DFID contracts essentials or have previous commercial contacting experience. It’s for those who are actively involved in selecting bids to apply for and writing the bid submission, or who have unsuccessfully bid for a contract in the past.

Unless you have previous experience, we recommend that you attend DFID commercial contracting essentials before participating in this course. We offer an additional 10% discount if you book both courses.

What you will learn

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Assess when to pursue a tender and when your consortium is likely to lose
• Improve your submission for tender
• Maximise your organisation’s negotiating position with primes and sub-contractors
• Use agreements appropriately with primes and sub-contractors
• Manipulate your budget to meet different criteria
• Identify challenges in implementing commercial contracts and consider how your organisation might develop strategies to overcome these
• Manage relationships with primes, sub-contractors and DFID