Māori businesses engaged in verbal tendering process
8 May 2023
Auckland Council has a supplier diversity target where 5% of their total spend must be spent with Māori and/or Pasifika and/or social enterprises.
Feedback from Māori and Pasifika suppliers has been that the traditional tender documents put out by Auckland Council are overly cumbersome, time consuming and often don’t result in winning work.
This has led to low Māori and Pasifika engagement through tendering opportunities. Many of the Māori and Pasifika businesses bidding for work with Auckland Council are owner operators and don’t have bid writers or expertise in responding to Requests for Proposals.
Auckland Councils Procurement team took on the direct feedback and worked collaboratively to form a new method of procuring services. The kanohi ki te kanohi tender process was created which is an alternative way of delivering a construction tender using a mix of written and verbal proposal.
“It’s a hybrid approach between a traditional procurement methodology and a lean agile approach” – Ling Hsu, Strategic Procurement Specialist.
The Auckland Council Procurement Team worked closely with the Marae Infrastructure Programme Team to develop this pilot. The pilot conducted in April 2022 was for a tender on the upgrade of Whiti Te Rā o Reweti marae in Waimauku. The marae is one of many throughout Tāmaki Makaurau being upgraded as part of a $60 million, 10-year programme with the council, in partnership with each marae to improve the condition of 32 marae across the region.
As a result of the process a Māori business won the work, and the unsuccessful supplier has since been engaged on a different Auckland Council marae project.
Having the in person verbal tender allowed Auckland Council to build a relationship with the suppliers and understand more about the business than they normally would through a purely written response.
“The Kanohi ki te Kanohi verbal tendering process worked exceptionally well for our Māori contractors. The chance to interact face to face allowed knowledge and experience to be shared with passion and allowed for relationships to be formed at an early stage. Something you just don’t get through a written submission” - Roslyn Pere-Morriss, Programme Principal, Marae Infrastructure Programme.
This process meets the legal, risk, probity and procurement rules and doesn’t do away with all the normal procurement requirements (Procurement plan, tender package & evaluation, supplier recommendation, contract award, supplier debriefs, benefits validation). Instead having a verbal component makes it less cumbersome on the supplier and enables them to speak more in depth about their business, expertise, and passion. It demonstrates the flexibility within the procurement process and the ability to iterate and innovate when given the permissible environment.