Julius Munene believes that tenders should be free to view, an open playing field for all companies who wish to participate and should be free of corruption. Sadly, that’s not the case.
He teamed up with his friends to launch TenderSoko.com with 3 main aims. As a platform for anyone around the world to view daily tenders from Kenya. To help businesses receive information concerning tenders in due time and as a public platform where businesses can view archived tenders.
“We are a new start-up and hope to build on this idea by getting more and more companies listed, and to offer more procurement opportunities to the general public,” Munene told TechMoran. “Our goal is that youth companies, women enterprises, private & public businesses, large scale companies and the Kenyan business community benefit. It’s a win-win situation for all. By posting tenders companies receive a larger selection pool where the best is chosen.
TenderSoko posts tenders from private businesses, publicly listed companies, Non Governmental Organizations (NGO), Institutions, Parastatals, County Governments & the National Government. The firm sources for tenders from print media (newspapers), online sources (websites) and direct sourcing (from companies). It then publishes them on its portal for everyone to view.
“Every so often we found it really hard trying to go through local publications searching for tenders that we could work on. It was even harder for us when we had to briefly leave the country but still wanted to work on tenders yet we couldn’t get tenders from Kenya on a single portal that had everything we wanted,” Munene told TechMoran. “We realized there was a HUGE gap where I could pool all tender publications together and publish them for the whole world to view, and hence we decided to start our own initiative of publishing tenders online for free.”
With over 1000 tenders listed, TenderSoko aims to double-up their listings in their database.
The firm says it buys bid documents to deliver them to users and as well writes proposals and other business documents for it’s technical clients. The firm also represent clients at bid openings anywhere around Kenya. Its other services include packaging tenders, transporting tenders, bid security, perfomance bonds, LPO financing and insurance claims as well as legal services and clearing and forwarding services.
The firm also makes money through access of archived tenders (tenders whose deadline has expired), tender notice SMS, Use of its premier USSD numbers, its API, advertising and other partnerships. There biggest competitor include Tenders.go.ke and others such as Tenders.info, Tenders Unlimited & iTender Kenya.