BETTER THAN A BULL’S EYE
of each project, your project manager, your team and the team you have contracted with, Larson says. Ligouri suggests eliminating errors by focusing on clarity. Integrators should focus on getting all the information they need and making sure nothing is assumed.
“Most of the bid specifications have some com- mon threads, but they often omit essential infor- mation that may significantly impact the bidder’s price,” Ligouri says. “Uncertainty tends to translate into the bidder adding a security blanket in the form of additional cost to account for items that are unknown or misunderstood. Clarity is essential. The opportunity for a site survey to acquaint the bidder with the structural or site conditions is also helpful. Information content should be
Sizing up Software
Bidding software can be utilized for accuracy and efficiency. There are a lot to choose from, but keep in mind that not all bidding software is the same. Be specific about what you want to do with it, and also look for software that is industry specific.
“Different industries have different esti- mating processes so electrical bidding software does not particularly work well for the security industry. In fact, the soft- ware in some cases is specifically written for certain industries,” Tony Nasca, Dove Net Technologies LLC (
www.dovenet.com), says. Tracy Larson, president of WeSuite (
www.wesuite.com), also emphasizes knowing what industry the software is targeting. “Bidding software in general has typically been developed for a particular type of end user in a particular market, for instance, the construction market or the audio/visual market. Some are more general in nature. Others started with a par- ticular focus for instance, accounting, and then branched out to cover specific needs customers may have suggested. Some do this very well and others do not. With any software package it is important to understand the core strength of the package. Why was it first developed, and what does the manufacturer consider its core market and target end user?” Larson says. “At WeSuite we focused on the market we know best, the security market. We are constantly working with our customers on new features and functionality to improve what the software is doing to improve their business process, their team perfor- mance and their profitability.” Profitability is improved by efficiency.
“Creating bids manually wastes lots of time, is not accurate or repeatable and does not include automatic labor calcula-
70 October 2010
The Project System from Dove Net does estimates and proposals using price lists, then automatically creates purchase orders and invoices when the work is complete.
tions, management oversight or control,” Rich Reihl, creator of Bid Magic, proposal and project management software
(
www.bidmagic.com), says. “Bids created in Word or Excel have little or no connection to the workflow that happens after the sale. Good proposal software is easy to use, automates proposal creation, delivers a very professional finished package designed to win the bid and provides a system to manage your products, prices and labor. To bid accurately, you can assign detailed labor requirements for every piece of gear. Then after the sales, the software provides the essential workflow for ordering, installation and tracking.
“Good bidding software must empower your sales team to save time, deliver better proposals and ramp up their sales. The right software must be easy to learn and implement to help salespeople stay focused on selling and be more productive. Choosing the wrong bidding software will have the opposite result. Complicated, hard to learn software can bog down your sales team. Some software requires expensive training and has a very difficult learning and startup curve. Avoid choices that claim to do it all, but wind up burdening your sales team with ‘back office’ requirements.
“[When using bidding software] for the client, the proposal is more professional, very clear and understandable and builds
the driving force with the understanding that the more the bidder knows, the less risk is present, and risk can be associated to increased cost.” In addition to improving clarity and accuracy, Larson points out that asking questions and review- ing everything helps produce a bid aimed at exactly what the customer is looking for. “Ask at the start of the bid process what the customer is really looking for. Be thoughtful and prepare your questions respectfully — in other words, know the job. Talk to the consultant, talk to the general contractor and project managers. They can provide insight into job requirements, goals and concerns the customer may have that you can tackle as part of your bid response. Being able to answer a bid in a very targeted
PHOTO COURTESY OF DOVE NET TECHNOLOGIES LLC
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