Our strategic bid support services, helping you to bid like you mean it.
Our expertise
Bid strategies and pre-mortems
Avoid the dreaded “if only”. Identify and fix the causes for losing — before they happen.
Why:
What could go wrong?
Ever thought a bid was yours to lose… and then ended up actually losing?
Only focussing on how to win and ignoring the possible pitfalls can make you complacent. To avoid losing, you need to know what might go wrong as well as right.
Where bid strategies focus on how to win, pre-mortems focus on how to not lose. And combined, they’re incredibly powerful.
WHAT:
Bid strategies
A bid strategy is a plan to win — what you’ll say and do to influence the customer to choose you over the competition. They work hand-in-hand with pre-mortems to form a compelling combination.
Most bid strategies fall short because of knowledge gaps, or just end up being unused. Our approach is different.
Building on the pre-mortem, we help you develop an actionable bid strategy in three stages:
- Plan: identify and close knowledge gaps through research and analysis
- Do: facilitate a creative workshop to define your tactics and messages
- Act: co-develop an action plan to enact the strategy.
The output gives direction and focus to your bid, paving the way for all the activities that follow.
If you’ve already got this covered, we can independently review your strategy to check it passes the ‘so-what’ and ‘why-you’ tests.
Pre-mortems
Pre-mortems are used in high-performance industries for a reason: they have a significant impact on results.
Only thinking about how you will win can lead to optimism bias and complacency, whereas considering why you might lose gives balance and realism, making the resulting tactics more complete.
We present your team with the ‘unthinkable’ — they’ve lost the bid and now they need to work out why. We challenge them to identify the root causes and take preemptive measures to avoid them, while there’s still time.
Experience and research show pre-mortems create a space where people can be open and creative about their concerns, rather than hiding them for fear of sounding negative.
Conducting a pre-mortem at the start of each major phase of an opportunity can help you re-prioritise threats and increase your chances of success.
Results:
- A 360-degree plan for how to win and not lose.
- A stronger chance of winning by identifying and tackling threats.
- An emboldened team motivated to overcome the prospect of losing.
Our expertise
Bid evaluation and scoring
Don’t leave winning to chance.
Evaluate your bid before your customer does, so you can submit with confidence.
Why:
Highest score wins
Public sector contracts are won or lost by the smallest margins, so you need to focus on earning the highest scores possible.
Your own reviews can be ‘friendlier’ than your customer’s evaluation because there can be sensitivities with marking colleagues’ work.
Engaging our independent expertise to be your critical friend will show you how and where to improve.
What:
Independent evaluation and scoring
When you’re trying to win a contract, every point counts, so it’s crucial to do everything you can to maximise your score.
Our evaluation and scoring service gives a forensic assessment of compliance with the tender and scoring criteria set by the customer. We also look for the ‘so-what’, the ‘what-if’, the ‘yes-but’, the ‘prove-it’, and the ‘why-you’.
By providing individual section scores and identifying missing elements, our evaluation enables you to prioritise and improve your proposal’s overall score.
As your critical friend we provide constructive feedback you can act on and we coach your team on how to improve.
Cold-eye reviews
We look back at why bids were won or lost to help you learn the lessons and win next time. We provide a balanced assessment of strengths and weaknesses in a report with observations and recommendations you can act on.
We either review individual bids or a range to pick out any trends that need attention — good or bad. One of those fiddly jobs it’s hard to make time for in your business.
Results:
- Identify where bids can be improved, leading to higher quality submissions.
- Ensure bids are evaluated based on their merits rather than any external factors, such as relationships or previous engagements.
- Understand why bids are won or lost to drive continuous improvement.
Tactical support
Successfully navigate the complexities of bidding with a team of experts ready to step in and guide the way.
Why:
A team of sages by your side
Public sector bidding is complex. It takes years of disciplined practice, and no two bids are ever the same.
You need to adapt and respond to the latest methods, regulations and market realities with each new procurement that comes along.
We’ll help you make sure your team is ready and equipped to get ahead of the game.
What:
Procurement readiness
We use our extensive and up-to-date knowledge of public sector and defence procurement to help prepare you for the various regulations and procedures, including competitive dialogue, frameworks, innovation partnerships — and even single source.
We guide your team through what to expect, the nuances of each procedure, how to approach them, and what to avoid; all to give you a competitive advantage.
We’re as involved as you want us to be. Whether you need an occasional sounding board or all-in consulting, you’ll find we’re as invested as you are. And like you, we’re always responsive to changing priorities and emerging situations.
Targeted interventions
Need advice to weigh up the pros and cons of your tactical approach? Or someone to plan and run a workshop so you can focus on the here and now? Or maybe you need someone to intervene in a deal to maintain momentum.
We give independent and practical advice about every aspect of the bid process. While your situation will be unique, our external perspective and expertise will help you find answers to keep you on-track towards your goal.
Consulting should leave a legacy of improvement. It’s in our nature to teach and share insights, and many of our customers invite us back to deliver formal training.
Pitch planning
We help teams prepare for presentations with an approach that puts customers first and slide decks last. Having an independent audience to plan and rehearse with can make all the difference.
What does the customer want to hear? What’s your ‘end in mind’? How will you make the right impact? It’s the small details that make a big difference.
Discover creative ways of presenting to make the right impression, putting you front of mind with the audience.
Learning lessons
Are lessons learned part of your bid process but rarely heeded? We think there’s a better way and it forms part of continuous improvement activity that can improve results as well as team retention.
Our service is about far more than facilitating a lessons learned workshop after a recent loss. It’s an enduring and measurable change for continuous evolution.
We hold a mirror up to identify the root causes and recurring themes for why you win or lose bids. This involves consulting with internal stakeholders, external partners, and customers to systematically gather vital insights across your bidding operations over a period of time.
Once themes are identified, we create a business case to help you make informed decisions about priorities and investments, giving you:
- A definitive understanding of why you win or lose vital contracts
- Insights-driven development decisions
- A progressive bidding capability optimised through experience that ‘uses what it learns’.
Results:
- Focussed expert guidance when you need it most.
- Troubleshoot and fix tactical issues on live bids.
- Become self-sufficient through our coaching and knowledge sharing.
Are you ready to make change?
We are. Are you?
Let’s talk – coffee is on us.