Scale, a digital platform for SMEs to discover and navigate through tender opportunities, has officially launched to facilitate broader participation of SMEs in procurement.
The company aims to solve a major problem for the over 1.6 million SMEs in Kenya who are either underserved or completely ignored by the existing procurement tools in the market. This revolutionary innovation already has over 3,300 businesses signed up and using the platform to manage their tendering.
“Tendering, by its nature, has traditionally demanded significant time and costly resources in the preparation and compilation of the paperwork, making it stressful, complex and expensive for small businesses. We are using technology to fully digitize the process and improve the capacity of these businesses to bid confidently and win more tenders,” said Marvin Tumbo, Co-founder and CEO of Scale.
SMEs who have bid for tenders in Kenya have confirmed that they have lost opportunities challenges related
- The manual and error-prone tendering process.
- Limited information about upcoming bids.
- Time constraints in preparing their proposals.
- Not getting feedback after evaluation to know what went wrong in failed bids.
- Lack of bid preparation skills and the complex nature of procurement procedures. This trend is even more pronounced among women, youth and persons with disability-owned businesses.
The scale system has been designed to help SMEs minimize the bidding errors that come with the manual tendering process and shorten the time it takes to prepare tender responses. Further, Scale comes with an expansive knowledge base that provides information and tips on how SMEs can continuously improve their business skills and tendering capacity as they utilize the platform.
“The tools and services available through Scale introduce efficiency and certainty into a tendering preparation process which, until now, has been a game of chance. By the touch of a button, Scale users will significantly enhance their capacity to apply for multiple opportunities, the accuracy of their bid submissions, and their chances of winning,” Marvin added.