Conduct diagnostic studies and business development plans fo...

PTC-RFP-052-05-2018

National Consultant: Conduct diagnostic studies and business development plans for 15 selected companies from West Bank and Gaza.

Project: Creating a business enabling environment for a green economy in Palestine

Over View

PalTrade was established in 1998 as a non-profit, membership based organization to “lead the development of Palestinian export as a driving force for sustainable national economic growth”. Over the last 18 years PalTrade, as the mandated National Export Development and Promotion Organization has worked with Palestinian exporters, the wider export support and national partner network, international donor agencies and the international export support network, to deliver a positive impact on Palestinian export performance. In addition, Pal Trade’s role as the Secretariat of the Palestinian Export Council (PEC) which aims to facilitate public / private partnership in the elaboration, coordination and monitoring of the Palestinian National Export Strategy ( NES ) in a manner that best enhances exports and international competitiveness have provided a unique opportunity for moving the export development agenda significantly to the forefront.

PalTrade has received a grant from the EU to implement a project titled “Creating a Business Enabling Environment for a Green Economy in Palestine” as part of European Union (EU), represented by the European Commission (EC), Support to Civil Society Organizations in Palestine – Economic Development and Local Authorities.

The project second outcome is building the capacity for the Palestinian enterprise easy access for enterprises to high quality development and trade information services that will provide them with the tools to identify the needed resources to produce products and services in a green business enabling environment, the related activities for the above mentioned outcome is , Identifying and providing capacity building programs for certified trade advisors, PalTrade staff, and other local experts/consultants in understanding the needs of a green economy in the Palestinian Territory, Developing and supporting Palestinian enterprises on the firm level to build their capacity to obtain internationally recognized certifications and assessment training. In order to build up the capacity of the 15 selected MSMEs to penetrate global markets, and Facilitating access to market information and financing options for affordable green technology and production systems. For further information about the project, kindly find the attached related document.

The Project is seeking to build the capacity of local consultants in the country to support companies / NGOs to transfer their value chain to produce green products for export. The project is looking to select a group of local consultants and prepare them to conduct such tasks in the country.     Consultants who perform well will further support selected companies in the project to do such process.

Scope of work          

The purpose of this assignment is to increase the competitiveness of the Palestinian firms by providing a standardized, methodological assessment for diagnosing and identifying areas of support to be delivered through the project o support companies / NGOs to transfer their value chain to produce green products for export. This will enable the project to better assist firms in addressing their areas of weakness in green production and practices in providing more focused and targeted technical assistance programs. Once firms have benefitted from these programs, they should be better equipped to compete locally and globally, resulting in increased exports and employment.

The consultant must conduct an initial assessment  of the company’s capability in the below areas, review the company’s systems, manuals and procedures, address and identify the business/operational gaps, assess the company’s needs, and recommend the required activities and interventions essential to upgrade the business operations, improve the company’s competitiveness and increase the company’s international and local market shares

The consultants that will be trained should have already knowledge of at least one of the following four subsectors a) olive oil, b) dates; c) fresh herbs; and 4) ecotourism.  

The training will upgrade the skills of consultants to cover social and environmental issues of diagnosis, business planning for companies.    PalTrade will develop additional model that will be used to amend current diagnostic and business planning tools. The short listed consultants will be trained on various aspects of social and environmental issues to give them the knowledge and skills to do diagnostics and business planning for green production and green product export.    

The consultants should have already experience in conducting diagnostic and business plans for companies, and its export readiness including the following aspects:

1. Marketing capabilities:
   1. Communication: Each company will be reviewed in regards to its sales literature, promotion programs, and advertising programs;
   2. Distribution: The company’s abilities to set up channels of distribution will be examined;
   3. Processing orders: Each enterprise’s capabilities of responding to inquiries, preparing specifications and negotiations, and pricing and quoting procedures will be scrutinized;
2. Production capabilities:
   1. Quality: The tasks of developing quality standards, developing quality control procedures, and designing product service departments will be checked;
   2. Quantity: The tasks of designing and installing plants, tools, and locations of the plant site as well as the engineering production process will be examined;
   3. Time: The tasks of determining inventory requirements, handling raw materials, purchasing and expediting, and determining storage and warehousing requirements will be assessed;
   4. Cost: The tasks of balancing production, developing maintenance systems, improving methods, and installing cost reduction programs will be checked;
   5. Fulfilling orders: The tasks of fulfilling freight operations, dispatching and scheduling work, routing, and estimating production costs will be scrutinized;
3. Management activities: Assessing the marketing and production capabilities as well as the management activities of each company in terms of:
   1. Planning;
   2. Executing;
   3. Control of all of the company’s resources and capabilities will be scrutinized to check if they are implemented and run according to best practices.

Capacity building program phase one:

The first phase of training of consultants is part of the selection process of consultants and will include:

1. a) introduction to environmental and social mainstreaming in business diagnostics and planning.
2. b) Introduction to green economy.  

This training will be open for up to 25 local consultants.  

Capacity building program phase two:

Short listed Consultants who are selected; will undergo a training needs assessment to identify further training required to upgrade their skills to conduct such assignments.    

Capacity building program phase three:

1) Specific training (s) based on needs assessment.  

2) Training on social and environmental tool for diagnostic and planning.    The training will include both theoretical and practical training; which means each trainee should work on one company to complete their training.  

The training will be provided free of charge for consultants, provided that consultant will be committed to support  two to three companies during the project life time. Paltrade is willing to compensate successful trainees to conduct diagnostics, planning, and support of companies in shifting their production processes to green production.   The local consultants who will be contracted, will support companies in conducting the assessment, development of the plans, and later in the implementation of the plans, also in updating the targeted sectors value chains . During this process; the  short listed consultants will be coached by a service provider on social and environmental aspects thus its foreseen that creating model for social and environmental is very important steps towards greening production practices; this support will be provided by a service provider that includes in its team a group of local and international experts.  

Scope of services for the contracted consultants:

1) Cooperate with PalTrade to identify further training needs.  

2) attend mandatory trainings (phase 3)

2) Conduct assessment according to the tool that is going to be developed.   

3) Conduct environmental and social assessment according to the tools that will be developed -

4) Develop business plans for two years for companies (under the supervision of other experts); including the following components:

1. a) Market entry plan will be prepared for each of the participating enterprises
2. b) Detail the specific steps which companies need to implement to switch to green economy in order to:
3. I) Develop companies’ capacities (including environmental and social)
4. ii) Develop companies’ products (including standards and certifications)

iii) Develop companies’ management (including environmental management and social)

1. iv) Develop Companies’ marketing (including environmental marketing)

5) Support the company in transformation to production of green products under the supervision of the international advisor.    

6)  At the end of the support to each company: each consultant will– provide a brief about each company studied with the following:

• Company profile:
• Green products produced – current production – future production
• Future Green products that could be produced
• Capacity building issues conducted to the company (actions conducted and their results towards transformation to green productions).
• Marketing tools developed  - Branding of products
• Standards obtained
• Markets targeted
• Profits made from the support
• Exports increase due to the support.

8) Selected consultants will provide orientation and training sessions for other companies and / or consultants (based on the experience gained during the trainings and work conducted.

9) Selected consultants will be offered to attend training of trainers for the new methodologies developed and used.    This will be open for outstanding consultants and will be provided with certification.

10) Some consultants will be offered the opportunity to  support PalTrade in updating value chains for the olive oil, dates, fresh herbs

Requirements and Qualifications

The Consultant or the company must possess the following:

1. Certified Trade/Business Advisor recognized by an international entity will be given priority.  
2. Experience in the deployment of internationally recognized assessment/business development tools such as the Business Management System (BMS) and the Industrial Modernization Model (IMM) … etc.
3. Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Economics, Industrial engineering, agricultural engineering, tourism, or any other related or equivalent fields.  
4. Proven experience of at least 5 years in private sector/SME / donor development projects/one of the above sectors.

Skills in the following domains are of a particular interest:

• Project evaluation skills and designing of business plans.
• Knowledge of MSMEs challenges and constraints.
• Qualitative and Quantitative research skills.
• Good communication skills in English and Arabic both orally and in writing.
• Good interpersonal and team working skills.
• Good handling of work tasks in demanding conditions.
• Experience in value chain analysis.  

Reporting

The selected consultant will report directly to the project manager.  The report and its annexes will be submitted electronically in word document.   The report should be in English and it will include all the mentioned points in Scope of service number 6.

Time Frame

The assignment will be implemented in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem from The consultant shall comply with the terms of reference. The duration of the assignment will be six to eight months from signing the contract, note that consultant will deliver the social, environmental assessment in two weeks after the end of the training

Application:

Individuals or companies who possess all the above requirements are encouraged to submit the following:

1. CVs.
2. Cover letter (indicating why they should be selected for the training program, how do they qualify, why should be they selected to support companies in a) diagnostics and assessment, b) planning, c) product development, d) value chain analysis, and e) for becoming future trainers)
3. List of Reference / or reference letters.

Attachments:

1. List of relevant experience in the same field and supported by samples.
2. CV(s) of consultants.
3. Contacts of at least 3 references (for companies and for the individual consultants).

Financial Offer:

Detailed financial budget with breakdown of cost. Financial offer should include (level of effort and “number of days.

The Financial offer should be in Euro and include VAT and the offer should include (support and implementation of the assessment under the supervision of the international consultant ,updating the three needed value chains ( olive oil , dates and fresh herbs), also one orientation day for other companies working on the sectors ).

Note: the number of companies that will be allocated to consultants will be identified at a later stage of the project; depending on number of companies and number of consultants that will be selected per sector.     This call is also open for consultants from Gaza as some companies are located in Gaza

Application process

You need to send your offer responding to the Terms of Reference includes all needed and requested technical criteria, and a financial proposal (quotation) to Paltrade office.

Proposals should be submitted by COB Monday the 20th of June 2018 at 12:00 PM Jerusalem by hand to PalTrade office, Ramallah, Al Bireh – Wataniyya Tower Building, 5th floor. No offers will be received after the mentioned date and time.

Offers should be received ONLY by hand into two sealed separated envelopes (one for technical and one for financial) with subject the TOR #: (RFP-PTC-052-05-2018)

Evaluation passing scores

Evaluation will be based first on technical evaluation, if the companies and individual consultants based the technical passing scores (55%/70), then PalTrade will open the financial offers.

Passing scores for both technical and finical is 70/100

*Attachments:

Project Document