Bid management plays a vital role in improving success rates when tendering. Going in head first to tendering without a bid management strategy in place is a sure-fire way to see poor results.
Tendering can often be difficult with many small details needing to be covered. Tenders can be varied in size and complexity, ranging from smaller PQQs to larger ITTs or sometimes even RFPs.
Please see our 'terminology' video on our Tender VLE to see what is typically used across tendering. Having the right formula to hit the ground running with bid management is the best way to see success.
The key stages to any good bid management strategy are:
Developing corporate literature
Buyers often want to see that your business holds the correct experience and skills to be able to complete jobs to the highest of standards. This covers things like:
- Policies
- Case Studies
- CVs
- Licenses
- Accreditations
It is key for any business looking to showcase their abilities that these are developed in a coherent and formatted manner.
The benefits this provides for a bid management strategy are:
- Having consistent and well-developed content to showcase your business' organisation and professionalism.
- Maintaining a bank of information that can be called upon with each tender.
- Improving consistent growth and developing a robust bid management strategy for future tenders.
- Showcasing your staff and company's experience in the best possible light.
Assessing buyer's demands
Given the often-complex nature of tenders, buyers can often have very specific requirements. Responses that fail to address this will fail to attract buyers and will get lost in the crowd.
This sounds simple; however, this can often be overlooked due to the size of tenders and their corresponding documents.
The key ways of implementing this into your bid management strategy are:
- Dedicating enough time to go over the specification documents.
- Assessing what each individual question asks and picking out the relevant information which aligns to this.
- Carrying out sufficient research on the buyer's organisation and how it operates.
- Planning enough time into your bid management strategy to create responses that reflect the requirements.
The benefits of your bid management strategy are:
- Showcasing organisation and ability.
- Helping achieve consistency in growth.
- Strengthening tender submissions.
Sourcing the correct opportunities
Sourcing opportunities that are right for you and your business are vital.
Developing responses can often be time-consuming, it is vital to assess opportunities prior to committing the time to create responses.
Key things to consider in this include the following:
- Do you have the financial capability to provide the contract? As a general rule of thumb, going for contracts that are in excess of half of your turnover per year is not a good strategy. You may be excluded from the process if you cannot meet a minimum financial threshold.
- Do you have past experience in delivering the services? Buyers usually require 3 past relevant contract examples over the past 3–5 years.
- Can you deliver to the area location?
- Do you possess sufficient staff to deliver the services?
Considering the above is key. Wasting time going for opportunities you do not have the credentials to fulfil is a guaranteed way of seeing poor results.
Establishing your abilities for contracts is key to ensuring consistent success in bid management.
We provide 10 industry-specific portals that streamline this information for you. this provides more accessible ways to discover new opportunities.
Creating a thorough Bid Management plan:
Planning is vital to successful bid management and will allow you to ensure you spend enough time and effort with your responses.
Failing to allocate sufficient time in your bid management will be reflected in the responses you submit.
To ensure consistent success through bid management, developing a planned week ahead of submission is key.
The key elements to factor in planning are:
- How long will each individual question take?
- Do you need to create case studies for responses?
- What do you need to attach for each question?
- Where is the response to be submitted and with what deadlines?
- How is the work to be submitted? Some buyers require physical submissions as well as online.
- What format do they require your responses in?
- Who will be responsible for developing responses?
The above is not exhaustive and will depend on your business. It is vital for bid management to take an approach that covers the above as a very minimum.
See our 'time management' video on www.tendervle.co.uk for further information.
Proofreading
Vital to bid management is ensuring all responses are thoroughly proofread before submission. Given the size and scope of certain tenders, mistakes can often go missed which shows poor organisation and professionalism to buyers.
Having a robust bid management strategy that carries this out also allows you to ensure your responses reflect the buyer's demands.
Bid management isn't just about checking spelling mistakes or grammar, formatting it correctly is essential as well.
Inconsistencies between questions look sloppy and are off-putting to buyers.
The best way to carry out proofreading is:
- Have a second person look over your responses. You can often become too attached to responses and fail to address your own mistakes.
- Proofread your responses with reference to the specification. It is vital to that you ensure the buyer's demands are reflected.
- Check for consistencies in formatting - Ask yourself, are all font sizes and types the same?
- Are all paragraphs aligned accordingly?
- Is paragraph spacing consistent?
- Have another team member undergo a 'mock' evaluation in line with buyer requirements/evaluation guidance.
Need Further Support?
Establishing a bid strategy that encompasses the above will allow you to see growth for your business.
Should you need guidance in developing a bid management strategy get in touch with our Hudson Succeed team.
We provide a range of services that are entirely bespoke to any business' requirements. We will guide you to success in your tendering efforts.
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