Common Problem Bid Managers Face (Guest Blog)

Thanks to Terry McGuire, BDM Director of Bespoke Bids Ltd, for this guest blog: 

 

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.

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:

• 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 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. KnowingBid 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.