Before Contracts Advance, how were you sourcing public sector contracts/ frameworks?
We weren’t! We had a go to platform for Social Housing, but it didn’t give us access to the entire public sector.
What were your frustrations prior to working this way?
The platform dedicated to Social Housing gave us a huge amount of detail, which was brilliant for drilling down into projects, but often it wasn’t able to be used in a succinct way. It was also expensive for multiple users. Whilst there is still a place for the Social Housing platform with certain members of our national team, we’ve found Contracts Advance much more useful for a larger team, operating across multiple sectors.
What were the key factors that led you to Contracts Advance?
My predecessor was actually the one that started the conversation with Contracts Advance. To begin with we weren’t 100% sure what we could do with the software, but by engaging with the platform, it has allowed us to widen the net on different public sector industries, not just social housing.
How easy did you find the onboarding process and set up?
We have a large amount of user accounts on Contracts Advance and we have a small number of Organisation Owners. For us the onboarding was key. We spent time with the Contracts Advance team to create the training pack and were offered a great deal of support during the onboarding process. The training that was created felt bespoke to us, which is why it landed so well within each of our regional roles.
What benefits does the Contracts Advance software provide you?
It provides us the ability to section via each sector with different searches created. For example, we have one for Healthcare, Education, Government and Social Housing. It has enabled teams to switch their mindset to that sector when reviewing latest frameworks and tenders.
Being a manufacturer, we don’t tender as often as our painting contractors. However, Contracts Advance has provided us the insight to know what tenders are coming up, which has contributed to more proactive conversations with our customers.
What have you found the most valuable aspects of the service?
We value the fact we can call Contracts Advance for support whenever we need it, and I know the chat box feature has helped a lot of teams that just had small queries from time to time.
What other Contracts Advance services have you explored?
We haven’t explored any advisory work, but we have looked at the export feature and how we can present information in regular marketing comms.
How happy are you to recommend Contracts Advance to a colleague/peer?
Really happy, we’ve gone through an evolution with Contracts Advance. I think we have about 60-80 users on Contracts Advance which is helpful. Our next step is trying to work out how to truly embed the platform across multiple departments across our organisation.
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide us?
Continuing those regular catch ups is key for us. We were really proactive at the start of the year with training. The next stage is to launch some “hints & tips” for using Contracts Advance as we try to embed the software across the organisation.