Spotlight On...
Contact: Neil Capstick
Tel: 020 8242 4413
Email:
neil.capstick@
executivecompass.co.uk Web:
www.executivecompass.co.uk
changes in bid strategy or updates from the client? How will the tender be tested to ensure it is compliant? Who will liaise with the client? Who will be responsible for the ultimate authorisation to submit the finished bid? Who will submit the bid and how?
5. Acronyms, terminology, bid theme and differentiators
will have to be agreed and
shared between every team member. All team members must use the same terminology and speak with the same voice. For example; are you calling them customers, tenants, residents or occupiers? Are you writing in the 1st or 3rd person?
6. Font and layout for narrative and headers needs to be agreed. Sometimes these items are prescribed within the bid but sometimes not. Are you using diagrams, charts, evidence boxes, document maps and hyperlinks?
7. Security of your tender submission is an often overlooked aspect. If you are a small owner managed business or an SME with a relatively short duration tender writing project of say four weeks, it is not generally an issue. However, if you project is a multi-million or billion pound project or a “must win” then you should carefully consider protecting your bid. This may include straightforward protocols such as prohibiting the use of memory sticks and CD’s or it may require more sophisticated governance and control. Typical processes for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your bid submission can include controls on external e-mails or removing the ability to download from the bid management system. It may include restricting the use of mobile telephones, preventing log in from remote machines and laptops and instead restricting work to permanent desktops installed in one physically restricted and secure premises.
Q
What more can you tell us about your bid management software and its application
in the process?
The bid management software we use is iBid². iBid² is our own software which has been developed in response to there being nothing
Top 10 Tips for Effective Bid Management
1. Prepare early. Select your team and give them a detailed project brief 2. Have a bid delivery plan. Without a plan containing clear deadlines, deliverables and accountabilities you greatly increase your chances of failing.
3. Ensure the team can write and fully understand their role within the team. Just because they are a Director does not mean they can write!
4. Select your win theme and key differentiators and ensure all contributors know them and know how to include them without it feeling unnatural, clunky and artificial
5. Use a proven or familiar bid management system. Using your desktop, company intranet or Dropbox usually leads to problems
6. Make sure you have regular quality reviews and involve independent reviewers 7. Version control is important. Adopt a system and embed it within the bid. 8. Create a glossary of terms and issue it to all team members 9. Do not have writers or other bid team members working in isolation, double up on all responses and task. This will ensure that if a key member of staff leaves you have continuity of function.
10. Source printing services early in the process
suitable on the market . We had previously tried two commercially available solutions but neither matched our needs. As a busy independent bid management company we are typically working on around 15 projects at any one time (excluding training, bid ready projects and retentions). The projects will all be with different firms, will vary in complexity and be spread across a variety of different sectors. Ours is a complex bidding environment and so we needed a sophisticated but intuitive and easy to use solution. So we made one!
As Managing Director iBid² allows me to see at a glance the progress of all of our bids, outstanding items within those projects and all team and client details. We use iBid² for version control, quality assurance and overall co-ordination of hundreds of documents in a well-structured and secure bid library. Hosted in the cloud, but backed up on our own server, my team are able to work from any location, communicate remotely with one another
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and the client, and access internal bid team communications and strategies. Our IT Disaster Recovery Plan allows access to information contained within iBid² via desktop applications so even if “the cloud crashes” we can continue to work, maintain copies of progress and ensure that bid writing and bid management deadlines are not compromised. Successful collaboration is key to winning bids and iBid² allows us to collaborate and share while at the same time providing a robust governance framework for version control, security of information and detailed progress analysis.
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