At Tender Victory we fully understand that businesses need time to fully consider and assess whether or not they intend to submit a bid – and that a bid writer (in-house or outsourced) may not be assigned within hours of the tender being released. But to give your submission the best possible chance of winning the tender, we thought it worth noting the benefits of using the full tendering period, i.e. giving your bid writer/bid team plenty of notice and the maximum possible tendering period.
If we take a typical tendering period of 30 days, that’s 4 working weeks (assuming no critical team member has annual leave, training or other commitments that remove them from the bid process). If it takes a week to 10 days to decide whether or not to bid, the bidding period is then shortened to 2.5 to 3 weeks. This compresses the planning time, which is the time when the creativity of the writing process really cultivates a strong bid approach. This compression of the bid period also shortens the time available for reviews and reflection – which is often when additional added value can be woven into draft responses.
When the planning time is condensed, so is the time available for your business experts to provide the evidence and information required by your writer to bring the bid to life.
All aspects of the process become very time sensitive when you have 2 weeks or less to prepare a bid. This increases the pressure, the risk of which is a compromise in time for thorough research, creativity in planning and sourcing relevant information (including images, case studies, testimonials).
When you and your bid writer have the maximum tendering period, ideas and requests for information can be dealt with in a more careful and considered manner, facilitating wider ideas and inputs from your team members. Creativity and time for discussion can really add value.
Even if you’re not 100% sure that you are going to bid, we recommend that you build a team approach and allocate responsibilities as early as possible. By putting a bid management plan in place early, your team will be ready to proceed and understand the planned approach. If a decision to not proceed is taken, any work created in the interim is likely to be useful for your bid library and/or future bid management and so won’t have been wasted. This poses less of a risk to your business, than rallying to pull together a high pressure bid, that ends up being not successful.
Whilst we often work within tight deadlines to help our clients submit their responses, we always advocate for earlier decision making, to allow time for all stages of the bid process to be undertaken without the pressure of compressing timescales. This allows for all contributors to the bid process to offer their best inputs.
A well managed and timely bid process can influence the difference between submitting a bid and submitting a winning bid.
We can advise on key factors in bid/no-bid decisions, as well as helping you to submit a winning bid! Contact us to learn more…