How To Bid For Government Vending Contracts

There are various vending business customers who seek to fulfill different needs through vending machines. Your vending machine business can earn substantial profits by meeting such customer needs in a satisfactory manner. Another way to enhance business returns is to undertake government projects.

While bidding for government projects, you must keep certain aspects of your Planet Antares vending business in mind. It is important to follow specific guidelines to gain a competitive advantage over other players in the industry.

Here are the steps for effective bidding for government vending contracts:

Step 1
The first thing to do will be to identify the circumstances that apply best to you business products and services. You should only pursue the opportunities that suit your offerings for best results. Such opportunities will be ranked and then, a strategic plan will be developed in the local and state government marketplace.

Step 2
Some vending companies may not have the time or resources to spend on searching for and researching vending business opportunities. There are strategic market intelligence companies that can help you under such circumstances. They have expertise in helping businesses collect useful information as well as in building relations with government organizations. You can also use their services for your Antares Corporation vending business.

Step 3
Gather information about the target customers, decision makers and influential persons involved in the project. Government projects will have a lot of influence by the elected officials and staffers. This means that you should be very careful while designing a business plan for such projects and make sure that no anti-lobbying laws are violated.

Step 4
For any government project, there will be aggressive competition. Many other vending companies will bid on the same opportunities and try to outdo the competitors. Hence, you will have to device a winning strategy to ensure that you win the government request. Develop and convey strong reasons why your Antares vending business should be selected over all the other bidders.

Step 5
It’s imperative to validate your message. This means that you need to communicate your message in a way that it is deciphered by the evaluators in the same way you intended. For example, a company supplying healthy vending products must give information about the ingredients and nutritional contents of the items. This will help on convincing them about your ability to meet customer requirements.

To win a government vending project, you must be thoroughly prepared and execute a well-planned strategic proposition that can beat the competition.

Enhance Daily Vending Operations With DEX

DEX is a well known term among vending machine operators. In the coming time, it will play an important role in enhancing daily operations of vending business as well as industry.

Different operators have different level of knowledge about DEX and its ability to improve operational efficiency. In simple words, DEX stands for Data Exchange and is used to refer to the DEX/UCS data exchange standard. It’s a protocol used to collect audit information through vending machines built in the last 6-12 years.

For using this system, you will need to install a DEX cable. It looks like an old quarter inch headphone cable that can be connected through the female connector of a vending machine, which may be available as a loose cable wired to the board or mounted on the controller board.
A standard RS-232 or serial protocol is used to transfer data between machines and the host which is typically a handheld computer or remote retrieval system. As an Antares vending operator, you can reap various benefits by using DEX but it requires:

a. Purchase and use of vending machines that have this feature. Your vending equipment should be DEX enabled.
b. you must ensure that there is a method of capturing the DEX data electronically. Since the last 20 years, driver handheld has been the most common option for this function but a new alternative can be the remote monitoring solutions.
c. once the hardware is obtained, you will need software that can convert raw data into meaningful information.

Using DEX enabled vending machines is a great way to enhance daily operations as well as keep the vending business sales and profits estimates in accurate figures and statements.

You should only use good quality, reliable vending equipment that has this feature and does not result in any errors in software programs, DEX support, etc. Planet Antares vending machines do not have any problems of this kind and support DEX for better daily operations and vending business efficiency.