Maple Ridge Landscaping cuts its tender reading in half
An Ontario landscaping company read every grounds maintenance tender on CanadaBuys from the top. Captivaq scores them first, so the half that were never a fit are never opened.
Amanda FortinPresident, Maple Ridge Landscaping
Key results
Tender reading cut in half in the first month
Province and trade checked before a package is opened
Mandatory site visits and forms flagged on the card
“Half of what we read was for a different province or a different trade. Now we only read the ones that fit, and the fit is on the card.”
Amanda FortinPresident, Maple Ridge LandscapingMeet Maple Ridge Landscaping
Maple Ridge Landscaping maintains the grounds of federal buildings, armouries and parks across eastern Ontario. Amanda Fortin took the company over from her parents and doubled it in five years.
The growth came from CanadaBuys. Grounds maintenance tenders post constantly, and the company bid on as many as it could read.
“CanadaBuys was our best salesperson. It just talked too much.”
Reading every one from the top
A grounds maintenance tender does not say which province it is in until the delivery section, and does not say whether it needs arborists or mowers until the statement of work. Amanda read all of it to find out.
Half of what she read turned out to be in Manitoba, or needed a trade the company does not have. The reading took two evenings a week.
“Two evenings a week, and half of it was for somebody else.”
The profile does the sorting
Captivaq read the company website in both languages and drafted the profile. Amanda listed the regions the crews cover, the equipment, and the fact that the company does not do tree work.
“I told it once that we do not do trees. It has not shown me a tree tender since.”
Every tender is scored against that. The province, the trade and the mandatory site visit are on the card before the package is opened.
Only the ones that fit
Amanda opens the ones that score. The two evenings a week became one hour, and the bids she writes are for tenders that were checked for fit before she read a word.
“Now we only read the ones that fit, and the fit is on the card.”
Maple Ridge has bid on the same number of tenders as last year and won more of them, because none of this year's bids went to a tender that was never going to be theirs.
