By Frosanna Kelso
Tender Specialist (and resident Disney aficionado)

Released in 1994 “The Lion King” is the thirty-second full-length animated film to be designated as a Disney Animated Classic. It tells the story of a young lion named Simba who is to succeed his father Mufasa, as King of the Pride Lands. Simba flees the Pride Lands after he is manipulated by his evil uncle Scar into thinking that he killed his father. Here he meets light-hearted outcasts Timon and Pumbaa who teach him their motto “Hakuna Matata”. After getting some sense knocked into him by Rafiki (Shaman of the Pride Lands), Simba returns to overthrow Scar and take his place in the Circle of Life as the one true King.

Like all good Disney films “The Lion King” is full of hit songs, quotable dialogue and life lessons. My favourite quote is delivered by Rafiki (which means "friend" in Swahili) while trying to convince Simba to return to the Pride Lands. He hits Simba over the head with his stick and pronounces that: “Ah, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or….. learn from it.”

Just like a bump on the head an unsuccessful tender can hurt, but you can either run from it (which won’t ease the pain) or learn from it. Regardless of how good a tender writer you are; it’s unlikely that every time you submit a tender you will be successful. If your submission isn’t successful, then you should treat it is as a learning opportunity and ask the contracting authority for feedback. Offering the benefit of another set of eyes (eyes that have evaluated the other submissions) feedback will identify the strength of your tender, while highlighting aspects that need refining. This feedback can be used when writing your next tender.

As Timone says in the 2019 remake: “Change the past? It already happened….but you know what you can change? The future.” You cannot change the outcome of your past tender but by asking for feedback and learning from it, you will ensure that your future submission is even better and increase your chances of future tender success.