Consulting Journal: Bid management

Bid management: Bid brief (3)

by David Blakey

The bid brief is more important than it may appear at first.

[Monday 26 January 2004]

Some questions about bid briefs remain for me to answer.

Timing

The bid brief should be prepared as early as possible. The best time to write the bid brief is before the request arrives from the purchaser.

If the purchaser uses the standard proposal life-cycle, they will first publish a request for expressions of interest (EOI). Each bidder will respond with an EOI. The purchaser will select a short list of these bidders. The purchaser will send a copy of the request for proposals (RFP) or the invitation to tender (ITT) to each of these short-listed bidders. Each bidder is therefore forewarned of the possibility of the purchaser asking them to bid. In the interval between sending the EOI and receiving the RFP, a bidder can prepare a bid brief.

If a bidder does not have a bid management process, then what they usually do between the EOI and the RFP is nothing. With a bid management process, the bid manager can do much work in that interval.

Accuracy

As the bidder has not yet received the bid documents, it may seem impossible for the bid manager to write an accurate bid brief. This is probably true.

The bid manager will have some idea of the nature of the bid, and the bidder must already have decided that it wants to bid, so the bidder's aims and critical success factors can be written into the bid brief. The need for internal resources can usually be described, although external resources, such as subcontractors, may not be known yet. A basic outline plan can be developed.

Much of this work can be taken from previous bid briefs.

The bid brief does not have to be accurate, in absolute terms. The bid brief has to be accurate, in terms of what is currently known.

Currency

This means that the bid brief will continue to grow and develop after the RFP arrives and the bid team has a chance to examine the RFP. In fact, the bid brief can continue to change throughout the entire bid process.

Bids, CSFs and aims Let me give you an example. In the previous article, I used a diagram to explain how aims, CSFs and bids can be independent, synchronous, or concurrent. We shall use part of this diagram.

The aim A-2 and the CSF C-2 are synchronous, because they can be met either by winning bid B-2 or by winning bid B-3. This means that the bids B-2 and B-3 are synchronous.

The aim A-3 and the CSF C-3 are concurrent, because they can be met only by winning both bid B-3 and bid B-4. This means that the bids B-3 and B-4 are concurrent.

Imagine that you are the bid manager for bid B-3.

Bidder wins B-2 You start work on managing the bid. Then you learn that the bidder has won bid B-2. You can now remove CSF C-2 and aim A-2 from bid B-3. Now, B-3 is entirely dependent upon B-4. Both of them must be won in order for C-3 and A-3 to be met. If the bidder now loses bid B-4, there will be no point in continuing bid B-3.

Bidder wins B-4 Now imagine a different situation. This time, you learn that the bidder has won B-4. There is additional pressure on you to win B-3 in order to meet C-3 and A-3. If the bidder now loses bid B-2, the pressure will increase, as your bid will be the sole way to meet C-2 and A-2.

Without a set of interlocking bid briefs, the bidder would be unlikely to see easily the influences of each bid on each other bid. It would therefore be very unlikely to see how changes to those influences would affect each bid.

Consider what this means in the examples. Because you have bid briefs, you know that:

winning B-2 and losing B-4 makes B-3 redundant; and
losing B-2 and winning B-4 makes B-3 critical.

Importance

Current, accurate bid briefs are important for any bidder who has more than one bid in preparation.

In fact, each bid brief becomes more important as its bid progresses. It is one of the essential documents - together with the reports on budgets and risks - that determine each ‘go / no-go’ decision. It is essential for these decisions that the importance of the bid - from redundant to critical - is known.

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