London 2012 Unveils £6bn Business Network
LOCOG, the organising committee for the London 2012 Olympics, has launched a new network service to help companies across the UK compete for thousands of business opportunities worth close to £6bn to help in delivering the Games.
The ‘London 2012 Business Network’, is accessible at www.london2012.com/business and aims to help businesses of all types to compete for London 2012 business opportunities direct with London 2012 or with its suppliers.
The London 2012 Business Network has three component parts: essential information on upcoming opportunities and how to supply London 2012; business events; and the new ‘CompeteFor’ service, a business ‘dating agency’ that will match companies to thousands of opportunities supplying London 2012 contractors.
Up to a fifth of London 2012 supply chain opportunities are expected to go through the CompeteFor system.
It’s expected that over £6bn of work as part of an estimated 75,000 future business opportunities will be up for grabs over the coming years.
LOCOG chairman Seb Coe said: ‘Delivering the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games is a massive logistical operation, requiring goods and services from a large number of firms. Businesses the length and breadth of the country will win contracts.
‘The London 2012 Business Network will enable companies to compete for the thousands of contracts that will be available and make sure companies the length and breadth of the country are aware of and can prepare for the opportunities that staging the Games in London in 2012 will bring.’
ODA Chairman John Armitt added, ‘The ODA has already let contracts worth over £1bn, most of these opportunities have been won by small and medium sized companies and around half are based outside of London.’
After registering basic company information on the CompeteFor website any interested business can view the opportunities advertised. Companies can then complete a business profile, which involves answering a series of simple questions, to be able to compete for opportunities.
Once a company’s profile is successfully published on ‘CompeteFor’ they are automatically matched to opportunities that suit their business and invited, by email, to apply for them by filling out a short, tailored application form.
The buyer advertising the contract then selects a shortlist of companies and invites them to formally tender through the buyer’s own procurement system.
Details of the winning bidder(s) are published on ‘CompeteFor’ and unsuccessful bidders receive feedback from the buyer. Throughout the process local business support agencies are on hand to help companies maximise their chances of success.
