Supplying to government
To become a supplier to government, you need to know what opportunities are available and how to engage with government buyers
Identifying opportunities
The government in New Zealand spends approximately $51.5 billion, around 20% of GDP, procuring a range of goods and services from third party suppliers.
Agencies are encouraged to post planned procurement as future procurement opportunities (FPO) on the Government Electronic Tender Service (GETS). This gives suppliers early notice of future procurements. Suppliers can follow an FPO and will receive notifications when a related RFx is released on GETS. FPOs are subject to revision or cancellation; they are not a commitment by Government to purchase the described goods or service. There's no need to contact agencies regarding FPOs, they’ll let you know more as the procurement progresses.
Engaging with buyers
Government agencies approach the market on an ongoing basis. There are lots of different ways buyers might approach suppliers, including:
- open competitive process, where any supplier can submit a tender or proposal to the buyer for review
- closed competitive process, where selected suppliers are invited to submit tenders or proposals
- direct sourcing, where a supplier is directly approached by a buyer to do the work.
Ways buyers might approach the market
Generally, large contracts are advertised on GETS. Suppliers need to register for GETS using RealMe to access listings. For smaller contracts, agencies may go directly to suppliers they already know.
Suppliers submit proposals for the project, then the agency evaluates them and creates a shortlist. Sometimes suppliers will be asked to present their proposal to the evaluation team. After a final evaluation, the agency awards the contract to the successful supplier.
If your proposal is accepted, there might be further negotiation around what you'll be expected to deliver, and the price.
Types of contracts
Suppliers can tender for:
- one-off projects with a single agency
- collaborative contracts, often with multiple suppliers, that many agencies can join and use.
Collaborative contracts help to streamline government procurement and make things easier for both agencies and suppliers.
There are three types commonly used by government in New Zealand:
- All-of-Government (AoG) contracts
- syndicated contracts
- common capability contracts.
Types of collaborative contracts
You can apply to be a supplier to a collaborative contract when the contract returns to market.
New collaborative contracts – or those being renewed – will be advertised on GETS. You can apply by following the RFx process. If you are successful, your supplier might be the only one or part of a panel of potential suppliers.
If you're part of a panel on a collaborative contract, you can be contracted directly to provide goods or services to any government agency that has signed up to the contract. Sometimes an agency might run a secondary procurement process, and invite some or all suppliers on the panel to tender for a specific requirement.
Building personnel security capability
Build the security capability of your own personnel. This helps to mitigate the risk of workers exploiting their legitimate access to an organisation’s assets for unauthorised purposes.
Managing contractors - Protective Security Requirements
Managing insider risk - Protective Security Requirements
Supply chain security - Protective Security Requirements
Principles and rules
The Principles of Government Procurement, the Government Procurement Rules and good practice guidance provide a framework to help agencies achieve better procurement outcomes.
Procure Connect
Procure Connect is NZGP's centralised tendering platform. Panels are being migrated there over time. You can manage all aspects of secondary procurement for any panels and contracts currently loaded into the system.
Welcome to Procure Connect — Procure Connect