Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Welcome to the first issue of Compass Points, our Ezine dedicated to all issues
tender and bid related. Please feel welcome to suggest or submit articles – or to
comment on any articles published.
Finally, a big thank you to all who contributed articles to this issue.
Eric Dalby [email protected]
Contents
1.
Pricing: The Forgotten Competitive Opportunity by Greg Eyres
2.
Time to Relax – The Tender is Submitted by Pete W
3.
Don’t Waste Your Team’s Time – Qualify by Duncan Gowing
4.
Weathering The Storm by Don MacLeod
5.
Common Problems Bid Managers Face by Terry McGuire
6.
Hyde Park Corner by Eric Dalby
7.
BidCompass Tip by Phill Ashworth
8.
Don’t Just Bid… Bid To Win – BidCompass Health Checks
1. Pricing: The Forgotten Competitive
Opportunity
All too often, Pricing your tender response is viewed as a dreaded number-crunching exercise.
However, armed with some knowledge, you can construct a Price that will demonstrate to clients
that you understand their business, which differentiates you from your competitors and delivers you
a desired profit margin. Along the journey, gain greater insights into your services, your business and
your markets.
You have spent so much time and effort making sure your tender response addresses all the
necessary criteria and more. You’ve included some really cool graphics and you are confident your
response document is what the client is looking for. But, what about the Price?
•
•
•
•
Have you assessed how competitive your Price is?
Can you explain why the Price is what it is?
What does the Price say about your organisation and your solution? What message is it
sending to the market?
How does your Price support your solution strategy?
Or, have you just made an educated guess at 5 minutes to midnight?
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Why is Price Important?
The answer to this seems obvious, but it a little more complicated. Various studies have concluded
that only around 11% to 17% of tenders are lost due to Price being uncompetitive. Needless to say,
that might appear to be a surprisingly small number to you. How many times have you heard Sales
Execs say they lost because of Price? Well, the tender was not lost because of the dollar Price.
Rather, the tender was lost because the Price was not understood.
To be more specific, let's think about was Price is. Price is representation of the value the provider
can provide to the Client. The Client will pay a Price up until the point when they perceive they
receive more benefit than the Price they pay. In other words, where the value justifies the Price. So,
Price is about value and the ability to communicate that value to the client. Tenders are not lost
because the Price was wrong. Tenders are lost because:
The value proposition was not strong enough to justify the price; and/or
The value proposition was not successfully communicated.
A Better Approach to Pricing
Something in the order of 80% of all organisations approach Pricing with a focus on their product,
their cost and/or their own internal processes. They forget the fact that Clients are the ones who
ultimately you have to sell to. Clients need to be at the centre of your Pricing strategy. You have to
understand what it is the Client is really buying from you. You have to understand the problem they
are trying to solve. They are not really buying a completed tax return from an accountant - they are
buying piece of mind that the tax man is not going to come and audit them. They are not really
buying IT services from a vendor - they are buying a reduction of risk and consequent loss of revenue
or increase in costs. In fact, when it boils down to nuts and bolts, every Client in a B2B transaction is
buying one of two things: the ability to increase their revenue or the ability to reduce their costs.
That is the value you are offering them.
How Should You Go About Pricing?
The key is gain a thorough understanding of your Client and their pain points. What was the
compelling event that occurred to make them go through a tendering process? What would be the
effect on their business if you were to be successful? What additional value can you provide
compared to your competitors. Clearly, this is not an exercise that can happen the day before the
bid is due. Pricing must be part of your overall strategy and discussions need to happen early in the
bid lifecycle. Not only will you understand your Client, your Offering, your business and your market
better, you will also be in a position to make an informed bid/no-bid decision before you have
invested significant resources.
To summarise, Pricing is a powerful weapon in your bid strategy. It really is where the rubber hits the
road, but it entails much more than adding up your costs, adding on a desired profit margin and
hoping for the best. Price Early, Price Intelligently, Price Value.
Key Points:
•
•
Pricing Strategy discussions need to happen early in the process and support the overall bid
strategy
A well-considered Price provides you with a competitive advantage over your competitors
that you need to promote
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
•
Pricing is not about filling in spreadsheets. Pricing is about understanding Value and
communicating it.
Article by Greg Eyres
Greg Eyres is a global leader in the area of Tender Pricing.
Working with a number of the largest companies in the world, including Motorola, CSC and IBM,
Greg has designed and implemented processes and tools to dramatically influence the success of
their tendering processes. Many millions of dollars in contract wins and saves have been achieved as
a result of these activities.
He has developed a number of patents in this space and has had a number of articles published in
industry publications, including Informs Journal, Frontiers in Services and Shortlist.
Recently, Greg has developed KPrice - The world’s only evidence-based pricing tool suite designed
specifically for tendering.
A Chartered Accountant by training, Greg now consults on Tender Pricing issues around the world
and can be contacted via his website at www.inforvalue.com.au.
2. Time to Relax – The Tender is Submitted!
So how do You Relax?
Here Senior Bid Manager Pete W gives his view…
So, the finely crafted proposal has been delivered on time, through snowbound motorways and
snarling traffic. The memories of the bid process are behind me: scattered pens and sheets of
screwed up paper, an inkless printer and a photocopier with an attitude - the bid Circus has left
town. Time to relax… Relax, with a glass of wine in my hand, R-E-L-A-X in the knowledge that the
heavy brown parcel or modern-day zip file will be opened by the customer the following day. As I sip
the ruby-red liquid I, through rose-tinted and bloodshot eyes, vision the whoops of delight, the
orgasmic glee and sheer amazement as the first words of the killer management summary is read.
With further sips, the joyful dance and exclamations of “they’ve not let us down – what a solution!”
fill my head. Yes, job done. “What am I on?” you ask. The bid managers’ wine-down Châteauneuf Du
Pape – or “Shattered-nerves do Pop” to my friends. Cheers!
Article by Pete W
3. Don’t Waste Your Team’s Time – Qualify!
Findings from a Bid Qualification Priorities Survey in October 2013
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Asking the Professionals about Bid Qualification
After several years promoting the importance of effective “Bid or No Bid?” decisions with my
employers, I wanted to obtain wider opinions about which bid qualification criteria are really the
most important, across a range of organisations.
My “Bid Qualification Priorities” survey was publicised via the LinkedIn groups for Bid and Proposal
Management Professionals, and the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP), and
a total of 102 responses were received.
Main Findings from the Bid Qualification Priorities Survey
Straightforward analysis of the survey results (see figure 1 as follows) shows some key points:
•
•
Most respondents were from "large businesses" (76 of the 102)
The highest-priority bid-qualification criteria on average
were:
o Strategic Fit of this opportunity with our
market plan (17%) o Strength of Client relationship
and influence (16%)
The lowest-priority bid-qualification criteria on average were:
o Availability of all required bid resources (8%) o
Total cost of all required bid resources (5%).
Allocate 100 points across nine criteria to prioritise relative importance
Strategic fit
16.6
Client relationship
16.0
Organisation Hot Buttons
11.6
People Hot Buttons
10.2
Resource Available
Resource Cost
USPs v competition
8.4
4.6
10.7
Revenue & profit
Delivery risk
12.3
9.6
(76 responses )
Figure 1 - Total Criteria Weightings
There was little variation in these relative priorities of the bid qualification criteria, either
between small/medium companies and large companies, or between those bidding into
public sector clients and private sector clients.
Survey Results: Qualification and Re-qualification
Applying Bid Qualification in practice:
o 26% of respondents said that 100% of their new opportunities have a formal
qualification decision before bid work starts
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
o
7% of respondents said that 100% of active in-flight bids being worked on, have
a formal re-qualification decision to continue work through to submission Figure
2 now highlights further detail.
What % of opportunities you bid go through formal Qualification / Re-qualification?
9.2
39.5
11.8
11.8
15.8
15.8
10.5
14.5
26.3
11.8
26.3
6.6
% bids have formal Qualification
% bids have formal Re-qualification
(76 responses)
(76 responses)
Figure 2 - Qualification and Re-qualification
Survey Results: Estimated Cost of Bid
Costs resulting from a Bid Qualification
decision to bid:
o
o
Survey results: Estimated Cost of Bid
• Average Total Contract Value :

The average estimated bid cost
was 1.8% of total contract value,
although this had a wide
variation
59% of respondents provided an
estimated bid cost, the remainder
did not know.
• Average estimated Cost of Bid :
• 60 estimates,

1.8 %
42 Don’t know
Small & Med businesses
13 don’t know
13 estimates
29 don’t

Large businesses
know
47 estimates


4.2 %
1.9%
£ 21 k
£ 102 k
1.6%
£ 480 k TCV >
TCV < £1m
TCV £1m – 10m

TCV £10m – 50m
£50m 2.0%
£ 1117 k
Figure 3 – Estimated Cost of Bid33
£14.9m
102 responses across all TCV brackets
• Decision to bid implies significant costs
My Conclusions from the Survey Results
Qualification Criteria Priorities
Higher average weightings given to the criteria for “Fit to our market” and “Client relationship”
indicate these are the critical considerations in order to decide if a bid is worth winning, and has a
high win chance.
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Lower average weightings given to “Availability of bid resources” and “Cost of bid resources”
indicate most organisations will find a way to resource and fund the required bid work, if it is
decided the opportunity should be pursued.
The actual relative weightings to be applied to different qualification criteria should be decided
within each organisation, dependent on its sales and market priorities. These must then be applied
using a consistent qualification process across all opportunities, to reach effective and auditable “Bid
or No Bid?” decisions.
Consistent and Effective Bid Qualification Tools
Making the best practice above actually happen requires an easily-understood Bid Qualification tool,
with criteria and thresholds tailored to the individual organisation. The tool must be easy to
understand and use, and the qualification process should be consistently mandated as the only way
for sales teams to access the expensive resources needed to create and submit a formal bid.
All Bid Qualification (and re-qualification) decisions, and the reasons why, should be recorded. This
will allow them to be reviewed later in the light of the eventual outcomes of the bids, so that
learning can be applied to improve the ongoing effectiveness of the bid qualification process, with
the objective to increase bid win rates.
Potential Opportunities and “The Luxury of Choice”
Applying best practice around Bid Qualification only makes a difference when your organisation has
“the luxury of choice” – i.e. more potential opportunities than are needed to achieve revenue and
profit targets. If you don’t have more than enough opportunities, then any qualification review
outcome is very unlikely to be a No Bid decision. So the bid qualification approach and metrics must
be properly aligned with the objectives and targets of the sales teams responsible for providing the
pipeline of new business opportunities.
Article by Duncan Gowing
This article is contributed by Duncan Gowing, currently working as a Bid Manager for Hewlett
Packard Enterprise Services UK Ltd. Duncan has previously held similar successful roles with Capita
Business Services and with BT Global Services and has 10 years’ experience of all aspects of bid and
proposal management. He conducted this online survey of over 100 bid managers and presented the
findings at the recent APMP UK Annual Conference. Duncan is contactable via LinkedIn if you want
any further correspondence or details.
4. Weathering the Storm
At last, some 5 years after the storm broke; we’re beginning to see the signs of growth in the
economy. I’d like to add that there’s a real resurgence in overall business confidence. But I don’t
think I can; maybe you have a different opinion?
Call it what you will, the graph below clearly shows the economic downturn has seen off a large
number of what many of us might have considered relatively safe businesses. Everything from
corporates and retail giants, through SMEs to micros have suffered. Of course, each will have its own
unique reason for failure but many will simply not have reacted appropriately to the changing
circumstances. They will not have made the adjustments needed to ensure their continued success.
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Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Company Liquidations in England and Wales (Insolvency
Service).
(Failures in Thousands, seasonally adjusted)
I hope you’re reading this because your company has survived. But what, if anything, have you done
to help your company to better weather future fluctuations in the business climate?
Have you re-aligned your strategy to match today’s environment and meet tomorrow’s challenges?
Have you changed your internal processes accordingly? Have you trained your staff so they are
better equipped to deliver your stakeholders’ or shareholders’ demands? How will you guarantee to
create future value?
Don’t worry, most businesses, like yours, will also have been too busy ‘fire-fighting’ for survival to
think about the actions they really should have been taking. Many organisations need outside help
to allow them to adapt, develop and grow but not so many smaller companies are willing to engage
external experts. Often, this is perceived to be an expensive, unnecessary option (“we can do it
alright ourselves”) and may be considered by some to be a weakness (“I’ll lose face if I call in a
consultant”).
If the last five or six years haven’t hammered the message home, even the world’s best business
leaders need help sometimes. Leaders succeed by learning from others (and, perhaps even more so,
by learning from their own mistakes) and putting that learning into practise on a consistent basis. To
continue the fire-fighting theme, Red Adair - remembered with hero-like admiration by a certain
generation - once said; “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, just wait until
you hire an amateur.”
If you’re closely involved in bidding or tendering for business in the competitive marketplace you
might have noticed the customers in your sector seem to have become more demanding. The Supply
Chain, everywhere, is changing. Not surprisingly, your customers would prefer to avoid the risk of
associating with a supplier that is not robust, not resilient, barely solvent, ill-managed or potentially
lacks the essential infrastructure to deliver a contract. This should give you some clues as to what
the ‘buyer’ expects from you. In a word – EVIDENCE.
Evidence you can, and will, do what you say you can do; and that you will not damage the brand or
the reputation of the customer. Whether your business is small or large, whether it’s new or long
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Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
established, evidence is king. Evidence that demonstrates your business has an ethos of learning and
continuous improvement is, nowadays, perhaps more important than a highly creditable heritage.
So where, in our world of Bids and Tenders, do we start? As a bid writer and manager, the most
difficult hurdle to overcome is often that of generating the full support of the client business, across
the board, for the initial bid decision. BidCompass makes this part of the bigger task much easier.
Built by experts with years of successful tendering experience, the application helps you to make
those difficult but, ultimately, rational and sensible ‘no-bid’ decisions. I won’t go into any more detail
about the tool here. If you haven’t tried it out in anger yet, you need to.
The point I really want to highlight here is that BidCompass provides a repository of your bid data.
This then becomes a valuable source of ‘historic’ evidence to show your customers you have
embarked on a journey of sophisticated learning. No longer will you be inclined to produce those
suicide bids that have spelled the end of some, otherwise perfectly capable, companies. The
guidance within BidCompass will help you to avoid the common tendering pitfalls whilst ensuring
your future tenders benefit from the accumulated knowledge and continuous improvement offered
through the use of the application.
Article by Don MacLeod
Don MacLeod is Managing Director, TENDERology Ltd.
www.tenderology.com
5. Common Problem Bid Managers Face
Within any position, no matter where you work, there are always going to be recurring problems.
For example, for physiotherapists it could be repetitive strain injury due to the amount of massages
they undertake (ironic I know; or self-proliferating perhaps and is why there are so many of them on
hand to help their colleagues when they suffer from this type of injury), but for bid and tender
managers there are plenty of common problems they face. From my own vast experience and
working with many of them in seminars, round tables and conferences, I have attempted to explore
and see what the real burning issue is and how it can be overcome.
Let’s be honest, although we feel we are not helped by our friends in procurement too much, we
should ask ourselves, ‘do we do enough to help ourselves when it comes to deciding when and when
not to bid for work?’ I set about trying to ascertain what the most common problems Bid and
Tender Managers and their teams face when bidding for work, with some surprising and some not
so, results. From observations captured over the last few years here are some of my thoughts.
Client Specific
Making tenders client specific involves plenty of research to understand what your client wants and
needs and reiterating that back to them in your tender proposal.
Making tenders specific to the client is too often widely ignored and abandoned in favour of the
standard one fits all approach. More emphasis needs to be placed on what their needs and wants
are if you want to win them as a client. There are many reasons why this standard approach is
adopted and, in my experience, it boils down to either contract value is deemed insufficient to
warrant research into their wants or needs; fee earner apathy dictates only a standard tender can be
produced or time constraints imposed by the client or because of the slap dash sloppy approach
from all in the business winning team which limits research opportunity.
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Not making a tender client specific demonstrates to the client you have not made the effort to be
interested in them. If you demonstrate lack of interest in the client, they can only assume you will
have the same apathy and approach to service delivery. Would you put your business with someone
who doesn’t care?
Management Buy In
Obtaining buy in from senior colleagues (Directors and Partners) is crucial if you are to add weight
behind your submission and it will demonstrate the importance your company places on this
potential client. A question which is often now appearing within tender documentation is: “How
much will this contract be worth to your company?” Or “Where in revenue terms will this contract
place our company within your clients list?”
These types of questions are designed and asked for specific reasons and potential clients want to
know they will be given the same service as Key Clients; they want to know they are being taken
seriously and demonstrating this to them can be key to winning that proposal. A message from the
Chief Executive or an introduction note from the head of the department at the front of your
proposal can seem simplistic but can often provide stupendous results.
It is clear some bid and tender managers still find obtaining ‘Management Buy In’ a difficult area. If
you haven’t got the buy in from senior partners/directors to do a particular tender, why bother
pursuing a career in bid management with that company?
Time Management
A passion of mine is rugby and players playing at the World Cup in England in 2015 won’t just get
changed when they head out onto the pitch and play a match. You can see them behind
commentators on the pitch hours before, preparing for the game. All of this takes mental
preparation and more importantly time; and time management is key. You need to use time wisely
to prepare your submission.
As soon as you have your brief from the client, you should be working with the relevant department
directors/partners to arrange meetings to discuss the opportunity. Talk, brainstorm, make notes
and thrash out your key messages and proposed solutions. Obtain clarification points you wish to
make with the client. All of this takes time, planning and preparation. Don’t allow gatekeepers and
administrators to block access to the top management you need access to. If you are continually
blocked, explain to the relevant Director/Partner that you won’t be submitting a tender and why. If
there is no change in attitude to time preparation and management buy in, again, ask yourself why?
Then search for a company that does take tendering for work seriously.
Qualification (Do we/Don’t we Bid)
This is for me is the most key area to being successful when working on tenders and bids. By
qualifying the tender opportunities your company goes for, you are directly affecting your win rate,
and by being strict about it, you will ensure your win rate remains high. Without qualification you’re
effectively adopting the slap dash sloppy approach mentioned previously: The scatter gun or
sausage machine factory of “Let’s throw as much as we can at the wall and see what sticks” will only
cause hours of anguish, stress and a poor win ratio. Organisations need to work smarter and be
more strategic in this area.
There are many different techniques and ways in which to qualify whether an opportunity is worth
pursuing or not, however, here is a simple one: To get started I would ask these 5 questions and
score them:
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Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
•
•
•
•
•
Do we know the client and have we worked for them before?
Can we service what they need to meet their expectations?
Do we have the team resource?
Who is our likely competition for this opportunity and can we demonstrate our service
delivery will be better?
Could working with this client be detrimental to the future aspirations of the company?
There are many other areas you could explore to qualify your opportunities, but these basic five
questions will help you get started. Once you have asked these questions and then scored them
(how you wish to score them is up to you) you should be left with a basic picture which can help you
identify if the opportunity is worth pursuing and how much effort is needed to complete the
submission.
Adding Value
How do we add value? When it comes to adding value many people will have differing views and
opinions of what this is. The concept is the client will gain additional advantage without having to
invest extra cost. Adding value to services is a way of enhancing your offering, with or without cost
and can differentiate your company from the competition making it difficult to make like for like
comparisons more difficult for prospective clients. Ideas can include: guarantees, service level
agreements, key performance indicators, quality assured service and accreditations such as ISO9001
etc. Alternatively, inclusion of non-compliant proposals to the compliant proposal for the target
client to consider.
In order to ascertain where else you can add value, I find it best to identify the logic chain and
ascertain where there may be areas of the service value can be added. A logic chain will
hypothetically go like this:
1.
Identify the central issue 2.
Pin point the reasons for this issue
3.
What is the desired outcome?
4.
Develop they hypothesis for resolution
5.
Identify consequences of implementing solution
6.
How effective is solution?
7.
Are there other options?
There will be areas you can implement at all these stages where value can be added which will cost
you and the client nothing and more importantly may provide future cost savings in the future.
Additionally, there will be areas which can also improve the solution which will add cost but will
provide huge benefits over the life of the contract and may provide opportunity for future add on
enhancements/projects, depending on your service or product.
Best Practice at All Times
It is difficult to adopt best practice at all times when you are constrained by time restrictions,
director/partner apathy or just adopting the slap dash approach amongst many other reasons.
However, if you want to win, adopting best practice will get you over 75% of the way there.
In order to ensure you will keep to best practice you could agree with the director partner
responsible for Business Development/Bids and Tenders what your KPIs will be and what you will be
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
measured upon. Make sure this is set in stone, or at least where your internal clients can see it, the
intranet perhaps. Having something you can refer to which ensures you can ensure best practice is
adopted, means you will have a modicum of bargaining power. For example if you’re measured on
win rate and a director or fee earning partner wants you to work on a bid you know has no chance of
winning, you can simply challenge them and refer to your KPIs. ‘Why should I work on something
that will affect my win rate?’, or other KPIs that you may be measured upon. Have confidence to
make challenges. Bid and Tender Managers are there to challenge and provide opinion. You are not
in your role to be ‘Yes sir, No sir, Three bags full sir’ people.
Internal Politics
It’s easy to be dragged into internal politics. We have all been in the situation where you are asked
for an opinion on some topic and before you know it it’s being used as a siege weapon in some
jargonistic war between internal clients and presented as fact. Innocently, all you have done is
provide an opinion, yet it can, cut like a sword when wielded verbally within the wrong context and
ruin working relationships with other colleagues. There are various ways in which you can be
dragged into internal conflict however, when you work on Bids or Tenders, you need to adopt the
stance of impartiality and look at what the client wants and needs. Think of two large fee earning
individuals in your company. Imagine you have a tender opportunity, but the only obstacle is trying
to get Arrogant to work with Egotistical to service this key client. It is all about understanding the
fee earner’s nature and managing their expectations. To do this you need to establish trust,
educate, demonstrate, isolate, and ensure balance is achieved so you can succeed in your objectives.
•
•
•
•
•
Trust – Earn trust so you can influence all given situations.
Educate – Learn as much as you can about the people you will work with and what makes
them tick. Then, using examples of their complex work, reflect back to them the complexity
of bids and tenders by mirroring those examples.
Demonstrate – Clearly explain how working in partnership works and what is best for the
client, as well as what is best for the company.
Isolate – Dealing with internal politics through managing expectations is best done
separately to avoid conflicting situations.
Balance – Ascertain where similarities lie. So when in a group situation you have an anchor
point to bring everybody back to. This will help managing expectations to achieve the
aspired goal of winning the tender.
Make sure expectations are addressed quickly as possible. If they are not and are left alone you may
well be forced into giving opinion, which will not do you any favours.
In Summary
Common problems exist in all areas of the work place; they exist because as soon as they are
resolved, the work place moves on and new ones taker their place which need to be addressed.
When it comes to doing bids and tenders common problems will exist mainly because of poor
qualification in my opinion.
Compiling my observations at the end of the day, most bid and tender managers agreed that by
qualifying tender opportunities properly, you will only go for what you know you can win and have a
team with you with bags of enthusiasm to help you win it. Knowing Bid Compass can help
streamline and evade complications; reduce the political landscape arguments, if used correctly, can
only lead to a reduced stress free environment and team.
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
Article by Terence McGuire
Terence McGuire is Owner and Director of Terence McGuire Associates based in Richmond Surrey.
He provides strategic assistance and coaching and mentoring to organisations on Tenders, Business
Development and Marketing opportunities. CIM and Prince2 qualified and with over 20 years’
experience Terence has worked with construction, engineering, property and professional service
organisations across EMEA.
6. Hyde Park Corner
Your chance to stand on your soapbox and get pertinent issues off your chest!
Is Win Ratio a True Measure of Bid Management Performance?
Throughout the years the culture of a scattergun approach to bid opportunities has been all too
evident. Indeed recent reports and surveys reflect that little has been learned and bidding on a whim
is still sadly an approach adopted by many. So where does this leave the Bid Manager apart from
stressed, frustrated and undervalued! If you are undertaking thorough qualification and planning,
yet still being told “Just go ahead and bid it” on opportunities that you have “qualified out” it doesn’t
make sense that you should be judged on Win Ratio. In these instances I feel the measurement
should be “Enhancement Ratio” – you should be judged on your performance in ensuring the best
possible submission. And remember it is well known that a Bid Manager never wins a bid, but can
certainly take the rap for a loss! – To coin the phrase – Success has many fathers, failure is always an
orphan.
Article by Eric Dalby
7. BidCompass Tip
Lies, Damn Lies and Win Rates...
Often a hot topic within sales teams. 'The MD wants a sales report. How quickly can we get our
hands on accurate bid/tender performance stats, reasons for win/loss and lessons learned?' What's
the answer? An hour, a day, a week or maybe never?
As you know, your BidCompass home page now provides this instantly, in real-time, through
powerful, high impact, real-time management information, but did you know that you can also sort,
filter and search more detailed bid performance data via the 'Bids' tab?
From here you can manage, view and present your data in many different ways, and for maximum
flexibility it can also be extracted into MS excel by simply clicking on the 'export' link. Again, once in
Excel, this data can be managed and manipulated to suit your specific needs.
Article by Phill Ashworth
Phill Ashworth is Technical Director BidCompass Ltd [email protected]
www.bid-compass.com
Compass Points Ezine vol.1
“The Ezine for tender and bid related issues”
8. Don't Just Bid...Bid to Win!
The BidCompass 'Bid/Tender Health-check' Service
You will receive a live and interactive review and assessment of the competitive position and win
chance of your chosen bid/tender opportunity, and advice on how to maximise win chance. This web
based session, using the BidCompass application, will take place at the comfort of your own
computer via telephone and screen share.
These sessions can be repeated at any stage of the bidding process and will be adapted to your
needs accordingly.
Sessions can normally be booked Mon-Fri 09:00-17:00 GMT but we will try our best to accommodate
overseas customers outside regular hours if necessary. To book a session, or to find out more,
contact us at [email protected] specifying convenient times and including details about
your industry in order that we can assign a consultant with the relevant expertise. Our Consultants
have many years’ experience, across the full range of industries and sectors.
Pre-requisites are a computer/laptop with internet connection and a Skype account or suitable
alternative.
Compass Points contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of
BidCompass Ltd © 2013
www.bid-compass.com