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Kent’s SMEs supplying the Games
As regular visitors to this site will know, the focus of business support for 2012 is CompeteFor, an e-procurement market place that provides support throughout the tendering process and helps small and medium sized business (SMEs) penetrate the supply chain, breaking contracts down to a size at which SMEs can compete. Visit CompeteFor for more details on the programme.
To date, there are almost 70, 000 businesses registered on the system which is still growing at over one thousand a month. Businesses first register, and then ‘publish’. As at the end of April 2009, 2, 596 Kent companies have registered with CompeteFor (able to access basic information on e.g. contracts coming up), with 1, 218 of these having ‘published’ (have demonstrated they meet several quality standards and are able to bid for contracts). This demonstrates a 46.9% conversion rate in Kent of registered business to published businesses, versus a national conversion rate of 45.0%, and a regional conversion rate of 45.5%. Kent also has the highest number of companies both registering and being published than any other county in England.
Of the two ‘arms’ of London 2012, the Olympic Delivery Authority has now placed over 850 direct contracts worth approximately £2.5 billion. The other arm – the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) – is at a different stage of procurement, and is expected to place the majority of its contracts from 2010, worth around £1.2 billion in total. Half of these LOCOG contracts will be placed in the next 18 months.
Support and training is available from Business Link Kent. Events in Kent coming up are:
- 30 June 2009, Burlington Hotel Folkestone, Quality Management Workshops
- 15 July 2009, Holiday Inn Rochester, Bid Writing and Tendering
