The importance of deconstructing a bid
Across both the public and private sectors, the process to manage a successful bid submission can be complex and daunting, even for the most experienced bid professionals.
The key to navigating the process begins and ends with comprehensive planning and ensuring that you have a thorough understanding of the client’s requirements and a robust plan to track key milestones and identify what will make your proposal stand out from the competition.
The kick-off meeting
To do this, it is vital that a kick-off meeting is held within at least a week upon on receipt of the bid documents. The kick-off meeting will provide the Bid Manager with the opportunity to provide a comprehensive overview of the requirements to all key stakeholders and set expectations aligned to the agreed bid programme.
The kick-off meeting should include all key personnel including operations managers who will hold responsibility for day-to-day delivery, the team who are pricing the bid, key support staff (IT, Health and Safety, Social Value) and your Business Development team who will provide strategic information that they have gathered prior to the release of the tender documents to help shape the key ‘win themes’ for your submission.
Spend time with your BD team
The documents provided at the tender stage may not always include a comprehensive overview of the issues the client has faced or the initiative that they are looking for a contractor to develop. Spend time with your Business Development teams prior to the release of the documents to ensure that you have gathered as much relevant, information as possible to support your written responses.
Key questions for the kick-off meeting
The ability to deconstruct the bid upon receipt of the documents and for discussion within the kick-off meeting plays a key part in the process where it is imperative that you ask yourself:
What does the client want?
Do we understand the specification?
Can we deliver the client’s requirements?
How can we add value?
Key documents to deconstruct
Every successful bid should always start with the Bid Manager reading and de-constructing every document. In general, the ‘go to’ document is the main Invitation to Tender which contains the bulk of the information that you are required to respond to, and it can be easy to use this single document as the basis for your submission.
However, this document will not always provide you with the granular level of detail required to allow you to write an in-depth and comprehensive submission. Although the information provided for each bid differs from client to client, you will usually be provided with a range of supporting documents which will need to be de-constructed and include:
The pricing document – even if you are not responsible for pricing the bid, the information contained within any commercial documents will help you shape your bid and ensure that the written submission is aligned with what has been priced for. Refer to key considerations including any named materials suppliers, expected staffing requirements and commercial allowances – all of which can add significant value to the written responses
The specification – the key document within any bid submission. Although the Invitation to Tender document may outline what the client expects within the submission, the specification will tell you exactly what they want, when they want it and how the contract will operate once mobilised. Utilise this information by clearly referring to the specification to provide the client with the comfort that you understood their expectations and have clearly explained how you will meet the critical elements of the specification
Supporting appendices – the client will include these for a reason! Appendices provided by the client within the tender documents typically include their social value strategy, customer care policy, environmental strategy and health and safety expectations. Take time to read through each of these documents and deconstruct the key issues that are important to the client. By referring to the information contained within these documents you can align your submission to the client’s exact requirements.
Deconstructing your responses
A common mistake made when planning for and writing a response to a question within the submission is the Bid Manager explaining what they think the client wants to hear rather than addressing what the client is asking within the question. Within any bid, you will receive confirmation of the weighting between the written and commercial responses which the client will utilise when scoring each submission. Each question will have its own weighting depending on its importance.
Typically, each question will be made up of several sub-questions which will need to be addressed to maximise your chances of scoring full marks. A simple but effective way to ensure that you have responded to each point is to deconstruct the question and use each element as a heading to allow the client to easily understand that you have satisfied their needs.
For each question, ask yourself:
Have I clearly understood what they are asking? If not, don’t be afraid to get advice from colleagues or simply clarify the question with the client
What does the specification say? As previously mentioned, the detail is usually found within the specification which can provide a clear indication of the client’s expectations
How are we adding value? Most of the competition will have a similar approach to service delivery. It is critical to convey how you will stand out from the crowd which could include innovation, technology, operational efficiencies, or your ability to deliver tangible savings.
First published in the PM Forum Magazine. www.pmforum.co.uk