Strategy

Strategy

The Bid Team can help you produce a clear bid strategy that will help ensure the key messages and win themes are reflected in the written responses.

Having a clear bid strategy is essential to ensure that all contributors to the bid know what the key messages, win themes and technical approaches are going to be. The Bid Team has produced a guide to help companies produce a clear bid strategy that each subsequent stage of the bid can be assessed against.

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02-Solution-Asses

Undertaking a rigorous analysis of the client requirements and how closely they fit to your solution is a key component of qualifying the bid. The Bid Team has produced a proforma which takes you through the assessment and a numerical assessment of compliance. It also identifies highly compliant elements that can become win themes.

Undertaking a rigorous analysis of the client requirements and how closely they fit to your solution is a key component of qualifying the bid. The Bid Team has produced a proforma which takes you through the assessment and a numerical assessment of compliance. It also identifies highly compliant elements that can become win themes.

02-Solution-Asses

All contributors to a bid should have a clear view as to the bid strategy, what key messages and win themes are to be communicated, and what the approaches are to solution development and risk management. The Bid Team’s bid strategy proforma ensures that these are available to all contributors in a consistent and understandable form.

01-Strategy-Form
02-Engagement-Plan

Winning a bid is much more than completing the client documentation. It should include a full communication strategy across all media channels. The Bid Team’s communication strategy proforma ensures that all communication channels are considered and an implementation plan put in place that will have a positive contribution to your bid.

Winning a bid is much more than completing the client documentation. It should include a full communication strategy across all media channels. The Bid Team’s communication strategy proforma ensures that all communication channels are considered and an implementation plan put in place that will have a positive contribution to your bid.

02-Engagement-Plan

The Blue Team review should consider the solution assessment, communications strategy and engagement plan. The strategy review must be held early so that customer communication can have an impact on the bid decision makers. The Bid Team has produced a blue team proforma that facilitates this review. The blue team review is one of a series of reviews that need to be undertaken as the bid progresses.

02-Blue-Team
02-Gateway

At each stage of the bid process there should be a reassessment of the likelihood of winning the bid. As the bid develops, more information becomes available and the likelihood of winning will change. The Bid Team has developed a series of gateway reviews that sign off the continued investment in the bid. After passing this gateway the process moves to the qualify stage of the bid.

At each stage of the bid process there should be a reassessment of the likelihood of winning the bid. As the bid develops, more information becomes available and the likelihood of winning will change. The Bid Team has developed a series of gateway reviews that sign off the continued investment in the bid. After passing this gateway the process moves to the qualify stage of the bid.

02-Gateway

The Bid Team can help you produce a clear bid strategy that will help ensure the key messages and win themes are reflected in the written responses.

Here’s a bit more information on the bid strategy for your guidance:

One of the key steps in bidding is deciding on your bid strategy and monitoring the bid’s progress against that strategy. Many organisations will say they have a strategy for the bid but this, in many cases, is not formally documented because “everyone knows what it is”. Producing a bid strategy is not an administrative process but a way of articulating to all bid contributors the key messages that the company wants to give to the client. It should not be considered an administrative process but be seen as a way of focusing the bid with the aim of reducing the need to repeat work. By having a clear, documented strategy bidding costs can be reduced. Setting the bid strategy should be one of the first things undertaken by the bid director.

Having a clear bid strategy is crucial to the bid process. Without a clear strategy, your bid is unlikely to be coherent and effective and as such, unlikely to be successful. This stage is essential in ensuring that all those contributing to the bid know what the key messages, win themes and the technical approaches for the submission will be. This stage is importance for the rest of the bid as a clear bid strategy will be what is used to assess each subsequent stage of the bid. This article will explain how to produce an effective bid strategy and highlight some key things to include.

The bid strategy exists to gather all the data and information needed to complete the bid. This offers you a clear plan of action and strategy to be deployed when carrying out the bid. The bid director should be the one that sets the overall strategy for the bid. Key messages that will need to be tested during the development, the price, approach and risk reduction strategy should be laid out by the bid director.

The bid strategy should be based on what the client has requested and your approach to meeting those requirements. A detailed analysis of the requirements should be undertaken identifying requirements that you are fully compliant with and those that will cause difficulties. This is the initial assessment of win themes and risks. Early risk analysis allows mitigating strategies to be adopted and tested. Your solution should then be assessed and quantified against the requirements. The closer you match the tender requirements then the higher the win probability. Quantifying the match is an honest assessment of each requirement. High scoring matches will support the win themes while low scoring will add to the risk register. The overall assessment score will allow a comparison against the competitors during the qualification stage of the bid.

Once the requirements analysis and the solution assessment has been undertaken the bid director should set the overall strategy for the bid. Identifying the key messages, early win themes, price to win, previous work of interest, the approach to solution development and the methodology for addressing risk mitigation. All subsequent stages of the bid development will be assessed against this strategy. All contributors to the bid should be aware of the strategy and use this as the foundation document for all bid developments and writing. During the bid the bid director should undertake regular reviews to make sure the strategy is being implemented but also test the strategy as new information becomes available. The strategy should therefore be seen as a living document and as updates are made a reassessment of the bid/no-bid decision should be made. All revisions should be documented and communicated to all contributors with the reasons and impact of the changes.

In addition to the bid strategy, which covers internal communications of the key bid themes, the bid director, at this stage, should refine the external comminutions plan. During the previous stages of the bid communications should have been on long term goals, once the bid documentation is released it should look at raising awareness of the bid themes through immediate impact activities such as websites, social media and direct communications.

Setting the bid strategy is part of a defined bid process that seeks to minimise the costs of bidding and raise a company’s win rate. Not all bids are winnable and in assessing the requirements against the solution, companies should have a quantified assessment of how close the bid is to the client’s articulated needs. A good strategy is not going to win the bid alone, but a strategy based on requirements analysis and on how the bid approach should address strengths and mitigate the weaknesses improves the chances of a win. As in all cases if a bid has a low likelihood of winning then it should be questioned as to why the investment is being made. It is better to bid smart and win work rather than bid for biddings’ sake.

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