Story by Bernie English
TONY Corrigan believes that small and medium sized companies in Limerick are losing out in the competition to win public tenders worth and estimated €12 billion a year.
The founder of TenderScout, a new technology company that helps small businesses tender for public contracts, said only one in twenty Limerick companies managed to secure state sponsored contracts last year.
The University of Limerick graduate added that many SMEs were spending an average of €4,500 making a tender where chances of success were minimal.
“These figures show there is enormous scope for Limerick businesses to improve their win rates for public sector tenders,’’ he said.
With 20 years’ experience in the Information Technology (IT) sector, he set up TenderScout after research revealed that only ten per cent of Irish SMEs were winning Irish government public tenders.
He says that, on average, companies who used TenderScout in its pre-launch phase have improved their win rates to eight out of ten compared with one out of ten for companies generally.
“Companies using TenderScout in the pre-launch phase have already won €20 million worth of business this year,’’ he explained.
TenderScout has secured a grant of €15,000 from Enterprise Ireland’s New Frontiers programme which requires it to generate over €1 million in revenue and 10 jobs within three years.
The son of a local AIB bank manager, he said he was confident that this target would be achieved once SMEs understood the scale of the opportunity open to them by signing up to the service.
“My mother has been in a wheelchair since a car crash in 1969 but went on to have six children. She’s really been my inspiration in that if I ever think there’s something I can’t do, I just look at all she’s accomplished with good grace,’’ he explained.
