We hear many clients asking for help with their bid submissions for both public and private sector contracts and generally they say they only want and require a bid writer to ‘produce’ the bid.
For us having only a bid writer produce a bid, and potentially be working in isolation whilst doing so, isn’t the best way to produce that winning submission and won’t deliver a successful and high win rate (e.g. 80% plus).
Well, why is this?
Firstly, producing a bid is like any other complex project and therefore will have a multitude of workstreams that will need both managing and then delivering the actions that will occur within each of the workstreams.
We recommend that the managing of the project should be by an experienced, and where possible, Senior Bid Manager. The production of the actions relevant to each work-stream should be delivered by the most skilled and appropriate individual within a business, namely the subject matter experts (e.g. the Finance Director owning the finance work-stream, the Operations Director or SME owning the actions relevant to the operational solutions, etc.).
Secondly, with all the actions required in managing the project, a skilled bid writer probably won’t have the time or capacity to both manage the project and focus on delivering well-crafted and evolved bid responses, which will often require 2-3 drafts before the final version is approved.
Additionally, if the bid is (for example) to deliver a complex contract, then having Senior Managers (Board Directors) and those accountable for the delivery of the contract involved in the project is key if the bid is to be successful.
To help our clients with this process and produce consistently winning bids, we’ve developed a best-in-class 7-stage bid process which is as follows:
If you’d like more information on why the creation of a successful bid entails more than just writing or would like to have a chat about any of the above stages, do get in touch with us via the contact link below.
Lee Hasell
Managing Partner
January 2020