Praecip Editorial
Most bids that schools receive are rejected before anyone looks at the price. The reason is almost never the offer; it is the paperwork. A bursar working through forty responses to a single catering or stationery RFP will set aside anything missing a trading licence, a TIN, or a referee they can actually call, long before margins enter the conversation. Getting the basics right is the cheapest competitive advantage in the room.
Start by reading the RFP twice. The first pass tells you what the school wants to buy; the second tells you how they will decide. Look for the evaluation split, most school tenders weight price somewhere between 50% and 70%, with the balance on track record, delivery terms and references. If the document does not state the weighting, the safe assumption is that price and reliability matter in roughly equal measure, and you should answer both explicitly.
Price to the school’s real constraint, which is termly cash flow, not annual budget. A supplier who can stagger invoicing across the term, or hold a fixed price for three terms, will often beat a marginally cheaper rival who demands payment on delivery. Say so on the bid. Schools are not buying the lowest number; they are buying predictability against an income that arrives in three lumps a year.
Finally, attach what the RFP asks for, in the order it asks for it. A one-page cover letter, the priced schedule, your registration documents, two contactable school references and a short delivery plan. No brochures, no filler. The bid that is easy to score is the bid that gets scored, and the one that is easy to award is the one that wins.