The Bid Process

Let's not forget that I also took classes in Whistler. My second class featured Paul Lovett, co-founder of Cleanevent and the man responsible for bringing us into the internship program. The focus of his lecture was on the bid process, and although he gave us a wealth of information it left me wanting to know more about bids (and how I can be involved in them).

First he explained that the IOC wants boxes upon boxes of information from the bidding city, an immense amount of work. Some of the major things they focus on these days are security, legacy, and sustainability. That being said, there isn't really a magic formula for the approach to the proposal. Sometimes it's all about building new infrastructure -- for instance, VANOC took a once dirt road in Highway 99 and went as far as blasting the mountainsides to make it wider -- yet sometimes the IOC wants a promise to not build any new structures, like Rio pledged since they already built a solid infrastructure of other games.

Sometimes it comes down largely to politics. Paul's opinion was that Chicago was too cocky and did not fight for the bid, and that Obama didn't do anything to help his hometown. One of the main things Rio had going for it was simply that South America had never hosted the Games before, as well as the fact that they threatened not to bid again if they didn't win in 2016 (they had also bid for 2012).

From there Paul moved into talking about what a contracted company such as Cleanevent goes through to win the bid from the whatever organizing committee is hosting the games (this goes for the Olympics but also things like the Commonwealth Games and other sporting events that Cleanevent works on).

First, Cleanevent goes through a process called succumbment; they succumb to the city's bid team and work for them - for free - to help put together the SCW (snow, cleaning, waste) portion of the overall bid for the Games. They sometimes even succumb to more than one city (for instance, they helped both London and New York for the 2012 Olympics). They will have a very strong "in" if they help the winning city, so assisting more than one increases their chances of coming out on the winning side.

The next thing Cleanevent does is submit an RFP - request for proposal. Numbers must be crunched, and both a technical bid (in terms of manhours and employees) and a commercial bid ($$$) are developed. Paul stressed to us the importance of never quoting hourly rates in the service industry. He also told us that if the job becomes much bigger than quoted, you should always finish the job before asking for  more money. If they’re happy with the job done, 9 out of 10 will pay more money to compensate for the extra work incurred by the company.

During this initial part of the bid, before the contract is awarded, is when many of the logistical details are planned out. What's important to remember is that at this stage "all you see is paper" - everything is based off of floor plans and diagrams and not off of an actual tour of the facilities.

Finally all applicants tour the venues and the EOI - expression of interest - process narrows down the field of bidders before going to tender. It is in the tender stage that legal consultants are brought in. Cleanevent's bid teams usually number around 15 people, mainly internal Cleanevent employees and a few from outside the company. In this critical time the bid manager must be strong enough to pull everyone together (Paul commented that in his experience a female is usually best at this role), and the marketing team must paint the story in a way that's appealing to what the organizing committee wants.

Although it is after the tender stage that a contract is awarded, Paul said that generally a tender is won even before the tender stage is reached. It's more about networking connections, and a relationship must be in place before even going to the bid table. One contract that Cleanevent is currently vying for, for example, is the Delhi Commonwealth Games. Delhi is far behind where they should be in this process, and the longer they wait the more they will be forced to go with a company like Cleanevent that has the proven industry experience. Other smaller companies don't have the luxury of simply copying and pasting bid proposals from similar events, so even though lack of planning time is frustrating to Cleanevent, it will most likely work in their advantage.

One tricky part of the contract is the issue of "field of play", and what - if any - portions of it the contracted cleaning company is required to clean. The lines are fuzzy here. In swimming competitions, for example, the pool is obviously field of play but what about the deck around the pool? It comes under the control of Sport, but they may still want the cleaning company to be responsible for it.

Paul told us about one event they worked (I cannot recall which it was, except that it was a large-scale Games) in which the contract stated that anything blue or green Cleanevent would not clean. They intended "blue" to mean water and "green" to mean grass, but the tennis courts had been painted blue and it turned out the organizing committee did want Cleanevent to take care of the courts. These types of confusions work to Cleanevent's financial advantage because they usually come to light fairly close to the Games, and by that point Cleanevent gets to charge for any changes to the initial contract.

Another change that brings in more money for Cleanevent is postponement of play. Scheduled competition days that become down days due to postponement are still charged as competition days, yet down days that become competition days also get to be charge as competition days since that type of work is being performed.

This lecture was really just a brief overview of the bid process. I can only imagine how exciting (and work intensive!) it must be to put together a bid to host the Olympics, not to mention to actually carry it to fruition. I hope one day I'll know first hand...