Understanding the Buyer to Improve Your Bid Win Rates

Thinking about the buyer’s aims when you respond to a tender opportunity will increase your win rates. Directly addressing their objectives, whether stated in the tender documents or not, will help your proposal stand out from the crowd. Behind most public sector tenders is a procurement team or professional and a well-developed business case for the tender. This business case

Read More »

How to Prepare for a Bid

If you’re expecting a bid or tender to be released soon, you might be inclined to wait for it to arrive before you start committing time and resources to it.  However, there are a few things that you should do ahead of time, to increase your prospects of success: Understand the buying organisation. Browse their website for useful sources, including

Read More »

How to Tackle Pricing Within Bids

All bids are evaluated on two key criteria: Price and Quality. Whatever the split between these criteria, you need to be clear how they are being evaluated and take action to maximise your overall score. This does not automatically mean you need to be the cheapest, or offer the most comprehensive solution. Having determined your positioning compared to other bidders,

Read More »

Kick-Off Meetings – Fundamental to Successful Bidding

Once you’ve made the ‘Go’ decision to embark on a bid, it can be tempting to get started on it straight away. If you are part of an organisation that is used to bidding for business, waiting for an official kick-off date can feel frustrating. This is understandable, but not advisable. A well-planned kick-off meeting can be a catalyst that

Read More »

Bid Team Roles – Who Does What?

In this article we describe all the key people who can bring bids to life. Whether you’re looking for someone to help you steer your company’s bids to success, or you’re just starting out in the industry yourself and wondering what opportunities it holds, we’ve de-mystified the roles and responsibilities of the key players in Bid Management for you including:

Read More »

3 Quick Writing Tips to Boost Your Bids

Writing a winning bid can seem like a huge task. You not only need a compelling solution, but you also need to find a way to communicate it in a compelling and persuasive manner. So, here are three quick bid writing tips that you can use now to elevate your next bid or proposal. 1. Use powerful headings In my

Read More »

10 Bid / Tender Trends for 2020

2020 is not just a new year but the beginning of a new decade. I list below 10 of the most likely (and not the only) trends that are likely to affect both public and private sectors – and both clients and contractors / bidders. 1. Brexit – For the 5th year in a row (since the 2016 referendum) Brexit

Read More »

Frameworks – What Does Good Look Like?

As part of our series looking at frameworks, what does good look like is a really pertinent question to ask. Often the clients we work with highlight lack of work, bid time, costs and the fact that they have bid and been awarded places on frameworks but subsequently not received any work. So, what does good look like? The truth

Read More »

Method in the Madness – Top 5 Tips to Help Write Better Methodology Responses

More often than not a tender quality submission will include a written methodology to demonstrate your approach for specific client objectives. These method-based questions are cross-sector and routinely include subjects like project management, programme management, change management and quality management. They also normally command the highest marks within a given quality submission and we commonly see them being worth up

Read More »

3 quick tips for boosting Social Value / Community Benefits in your bids

If you are bidding for public sector work, you need to consider Social Value / Community Benefits. Procurement staff are legally bound by the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 (in England and Wales) and the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 to consider the social impact of procurement on local communities. This now forms a major role in bid evaluation,

Read More »