Why MWI doesn’t bid on government contracts.

From time to time MWI is invited to bid on government contracts. We never respond to these requests for three reasons:

1. Bureaucracy. The bidding process with government is full of red tape and hoops to jump through. There are all sort of requirements that have to be verified. There is paperwork to fill out. It’s time consuming and a pain. By contrast, bidding on a job for a private company can be as simple as sending an email with some general pricing information.

2. Speed. The government is slow. Everything has to be approved and go through the proper channels. With private companies, we can go from responding to a request for proposal to having a signed contract and a check in our hand within 24 hours.

3. Multiple bids. The government is required to get at least three bids. Sometimes the decision makers have already decided who to use, but since they have to get three bids they call us up and ask us to submit a bid, knowing full well that we won’t get it, no matter what. Why would I want to spend my company’s time on something like that? Even if we have a fair shot at it, we know we’re competing against at least two other firms, and that whoever has the lowest price will probably win the work. We are never the lowest price and we don’t try to be the lowest price.

In fact, at MWI we don’t respond to bids from any company if they tell us we’re competing against someone else for the work. We have enough work where we are the sole company providing a bid that we don’t need the hassle of fighting for the work. We’ll let someone else focus on the competitive situation and we’ll spend our time with the clients who have already decided to use us before they even know what our bid will be.

So if you’re with the government and would like us to submit a bid for a project, we’re glad we’re on your radar, but not interested.