Supporting SMEs

ESPO welcomes tenders from small and medium sized enterprises. Did you know that in the financial year April 2015 - March 2016, 76% of suppliers awarded contracts by ESPO were classified as a SME?  To find out more about the steps we take to encourage SMEs to bid for tenders, please read our article entitled Joining an ESPO framework isn’t as hard as you think.

To further this commitment we’ve recently signed up to the Small Business Friendly Procurement Charter, developed by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) to promote positive procurement between small businesses and public and private sector organisations. The charter makes best practice recommendations to encourage better procurement processes for local small firms, and ESPO is working to ensure that SMEs are not disadvantaged by our procurement process.

"As a rapidly expanding SME, GreatBeanBags™ are delighted to have been awarded a tender by ESPO to manufacture and supply their range of educational soft furnishings. Tenders of this type are fantastic for growing businesses such as ourselves as they allow us to comfortably forecast mid-term sales, staffing requirements and manufacturing availability. We’re also very excited to be working with such a reputable organisation, meeting and exceeding their high standards and supplying our quality soft furnishings to such a wide range of institutions.”

Patrick Tonks, Creative Director, GreatBeanBags™