Become a Preferred Supplier

The volume of companies contacting WALGA seeking Preferred Supplier status far exceeds the number of suppliers currently contracted. As a Member focused organisation the relevance and balance of the panels need to directly meet Member requirements as much as possible. The wrong mix of suppliers can make the Panels difficult to navigate or offer insufficient supply options in the right category areas. WALGA also has limited resources to conduct tenders and contract manage its Panels, so Member based endorsement ensures WALGA prioritises suppliers who are going to be utilised by Members.

The PSP has minimum qualitative standards which must be met for prequalification.  These are assessed through the Tender process.

The PSP Tender is an objective procurement process.  Without compliance to the due diligence requirements, and assessment against a scope of services to evidence organisational resources (capacity) and capability to supply then the supplier may not be recommended to the Program.  

WALGA may also prioritise areas of demand or take other factors into account when considering the composition of a Panel.  For example, if a category of supply is already overrepresented by too many suppliers and the category is not being sufficiently utilised, further review may be undertaken prior to considering issuing an invite to Tender.

Suppliers should be aware that there are a number of final approval steps reviewed prior to being offered any invitation into a prequalification process. Additionally, in the case of suppliers who were previously Contracted to the PSP, this may result in additional discussion to ascertain suitability.

WALGA will issue a Public Tender to the open market for a new category development and for activity that incurs a significant change to scope or market conditions. WALGA may also issue public tenders for areas of high demand and where there are insufficient supply options available for Members to obtain a minimum number of quotations.  

In some instances WALGA may invite tenders resulting from policy and project work and from other avenues of referral where a significant Member benefit can be identified. 

WALGA’s regular RFT processes to onboard new suppliers occur twice a year (currently in February and August). Urgent ad-hoc Tenders may result where critical circumstances are identified. The WALGA Tender is generally open to the market for a period of four to six weeks. Depending on the number of submissions the evaluation period can also take up to three months.  The contracting of suppliers is dependent on the complexity of the tender and the time required for suppliers to review and accept contract terms. The contracts are immediately implemented when signed and progressively added to eQuotes (VendorPanel).

On average it can be expected that there is a three to five month period between opening a Tender and activating a new Preferred Supplier Contract.