Consulting Journal: Bid management

Bid management: Bid brief (1)

by David Blakey

This article describes a bid brief and its content.

[Monday 12 January 2004]

There are several differences between actually managing a bid and simply preparing a proposal. Some of these differences are because of the scope or ‘width’ of bid management; others are caused by its scale or ‘depth’. In this article, we shall look at an important document that helps to define both the scope and scale of a bid.

Most proposals are concerned with responding to the purchaser's request. When a purchaser issues a request for proposals, each bidder responds with their proposal. These proposals are usually exclusively focused on responding.

When you apply bid management, you increase the scope of your proposals. Instead of focusing exclusively on what the purchaser wants, you give some of your attention to what you want. I recommend that you write a ‘brief’ for the bid.

Content

The content of a bid brief is divided into four sections, each of which logically follows from the previous section.

1. Aims

The first section describes the aims of the bid. There are two kinds of aims: the purchaser's aims and the bidder's aims. The purchaser's aims should be listed in their request. If they are not, then ask the purchaser what their aims are.

I have to insert the usual caveat here. As always, when you ask a purchaser or a customer or even your own client to describe their aims, they may discover that their request or bid or assignment does not have any real aims. If they discover this, they may scrap the request, bid or assignment.

You need to write down your own aims. And ‘To win the bid’ is not good enough. There has to be a real business aim for winning the bid. Winning the bid may enable you to move into new markets or new sectors, or it may enable you to increase your margins from an existing service, or it may provide cash to invest in expansion or replacement of your existing systems and infrastructure. You need to have a real aim.

2. Critical success factors

The second section describes the critical success factors that will make the bid process successful. You cannot guarantee that you will win the business. You cannot really predict the purchaser's behaviour. But, when the bid process is complete, you should be able to say ‘We have done the best that we could. Now it's up to the purchaser.’ You will know if you have done the best that you could if you have met all the CSFs. You already know that know that bid management goes byond simply submitting a proposal. It includes demonstrations, visits to client sites, meetings and every aspect of interaction between you and the purchaser. List them all as CSFs for your bid.

3. Resources

The third section lists the resources that you will need to meet these critical success factors. Without bid management, it is usual for people to be ‘lent’ to prepare parts of the proposal. There are some key people who will be asked to contribute to every proposal. With bid management, there will be clear statement of your needs, so that key people will know exactly what there commitment will be.

If you have several simultaneous bids, you may have to schedule resources - including people - between them. You should also be able to avoid the situation of several proposals scheduled to be printed at the same time on the same laser printer.

Many proposals are due by the start of business on a Monday (or the first day of your working week, if that is not Monday). So, most proposal printing begins on Friday afternoon, often only two hours before the close of business. This often means that the proposal will be printed on Friday night or over the weekend. If the printer fails in this time, it may be difficult to get it repaired. (In one absurd case, the printer ran out of paper, and none of the people who were doing the printing had a key to the stationery store.) It remains a mystery to me why so many businesses inflict this situation upon themselves.

Some of the resources may not be yours. Some of the people may be subcontractors or third parties. Some of them may even be employees of the purchaser. Your brief will point out that you need these people. You may need other resources from subcontractors or third parties, such as marketing material or demonstrations.

4. Outline plan

Finally, your brief should include an outline plan of when actions will be taken, when resources will be needed and when money will be spent. This not be a detailed plan, and it not be your final plan. It will provide an indication of how all the resources will be used to meet the CSFs and to satisfy the aims of the bid.

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