Spotlight On... Bid & Tender Management Neil Capstick, Managing Director of Executive Compass
“Bid management begins long before the bid is issued. The first rule of thumb is that if a company does not know in advance of the opportunity then the chances of winning are greatly reduced”
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eil Capstick is the Managing Director of Executive Compass® and an MBA qualified Chartered Manager with an MSc in business research methods. Neil has been
writing bids in one form or another for over fifteen years, and since 2009, after committing full-time, has been involved in over 1,000 bid writing, training or bid management projects.
What more can you tell us about Executive Compass?
Formed in 2009 Executive Compass® is one of the largest independent bid writing companies in the UK. Unlike practically all other consultancies we do not use freelance writers or associates as we believe this makes the quality management and quality assurance aspects of producing winning tenders difficult to manage. Instead we rely on professionally trained, directly employed and highly qualified staff to produce our bids which are based on quality, innovation and clearly defined differentiators. Our ethos is built on high ethics and confidentiality and we adhere to the Chartered Management Institutes’ Code of Practice. Executive Compass® is certified to ISO 9001:2008 for PQQ, bid and tender writing and management and training, we are also members of the APMP, the Chartered Management Institute and the Institute of Consulting.
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What challenges are often encountered in the bid and tender process?
Challenges encountered in the bid and tender process vary widely. This is dependent on sector,
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service or product delivery, competitiveness of the industry and the experience a company has of the public sector procurement process. However, there are some recurring themes;
• An overall lack of understanding of how to approach a bid, what constitutes a compliant, persuasive and winning response and how to construct it
• Many firms think that tenders are “fixed” and that there is no point in bidding. Only when we have reviewed previous submissions and shown them their own mistakes do they begin to understand that process is actually equitable and transparent
• Nearly all firms underestimate the time it takes to produce a winning tender submission
• Practically all tender writing project are under- resourced. Tenders tend to be “shared out” to heads of department or subject specialists. While this approach does have its merits many functional heads are not skilled at writing, especially tender writing which requires a very specific approach. The result is that the tender response is difficult to read, contains inconsistencies or contradictions and often has no clear win theme or differentiator
• Clients tend do little research on their clients, their competitors and the market in general. Their approach tends to be all about their own needs rather than the needs of their potential client or the market place.
• There is no body of evidence to support the tender and claims cannot be substantiated. The public sector is risk averse and not being able to evidence responses nearly always leads to failure.
• Most companies do not have a formal bid/no bid process. This results in them often pursuing opportunities that either they have no real chance of winning or do not align to their overall organisational strategy.
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How can bids and tenders be managed effectively?
Bid management begins long before the bid is issued. The first rule of thumb is that if a company does not know in advance of the opportunity (prior to notice) then the chances of winning are greatly reduced.
There is a ten stage process to managing bids
1. Scan the industry environment. Find out about the opportunity, when it will be issued, how it will be evaluated and why it is being put out tender
2. Select your team well in advance and involve them as early as possible. This will allow them to prepare and plan and to manage and distribute
commitment in advance. It also allows staff to begin to think about the process.
3. Agree the roles and responsibilities of the team. For example, bid management, bid co ordination, design, formatting, proof reading, quality assurance, and sectional leads.
4. Agree processes; who will quality assure the work, and how will quality assurance be undertaken? What platform will be used to manage the bid and the documents within it? What form of version control will be used? What medium will be used to communicate
their workload of existing
SPOTLIGHT ON...
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