You work for a large, publicly owned organization that procures many services from organizations based both nationally and more locally to your offices. For many years your offices have been supplied with stationery by a local wholesale distributor with whom you have built an excellent business relationship. Any issues you may have had with the service provided have been resolved by a phone call or email, resulting in an immediate refund or recompense for any errors made. If any costs have been proved too high, the supplier has routinely refunded any difference by reducing the following invoice by the appropriate amount. Recently, due to new rules on public accountability and the requirement for open and fair procurement legislation, a new process has been introduced. Suppliers now have to enter into a competitive tendering process.

This has resulted in your regular stationery supplier losing the contract to a rival organization whose bid won the tender on the grounds of a narrow cost margin.

Your task: It is your role to write a formal letter to the CEO of the losing stationery company to inform her of the loss of the contract.

To maintain confidentiality and the principles of fair competitive tendering, you cannot reveal any details of the competitor bid beyond it being favored under the rules of the tendering process.