Bid Qualification
Should you bid and can you win?
However, recognising your own capacity as a business can be a tricky task, particularly when you are unfamiliar with tendering or have a sales evangelist who is certain that your relationship with the client’s decision maker makes this tender a ‘guaranteed sale’. If you get it wrong, then you can find yourself burning up essential resources, acquiring business that is neither profitable nor strategically beneficial to long-term gains, or missing out on highly advantageous contracts by wasting resources on unsuitable tenders.
How we can help
We use a combination of proven tools, market research, experience and an objective point of view to help qualify the tender.
Perhaps most importantly, our Bid Qualification service lends our clients a higher degree of competitive-awareness which is, to put it simply, priceless. A company’s awareness of their own ability to meet requirements allows them to bid strategically, which mitigates resource wastage and can vastly increase profitability. As an example, a bidding company that has fully accounted for its own capacity, the quality of its response and their relationship with their competitors is able to align their pricing offer accordingly. Their self-awareness prevents them from bidding too low – in the hopes of securing the contract and at the expense of profitability – or too high, in a misjudgement of their lack of capability. In the case of the former, they may be tied to a long-term contract that drains their resources and could, at worst, bankrupt their company. In the latter case, having wasted time and resource on bidding for a contract they could not win, a company may find itself unable to bid for more appropriate contracts.
Our tools
We use different methodologies depending on the type of bid and the target market.
The S.C.O.T.S.M.A.N Methodology
In the private sector, we will typically help to qualify the opportunity using S.C.O.T.S.M.A.N. This is a well-known tool employed by businesses to help them identify potential customers and to certify that, upon acquiring that customer, they can deliver the service both efficiently and profitably. The methodology invites businesses to consider: whether they can provide a Solution; the Competition; the Originality of their solution; Timescales; the Size of the project; the Money; the procuring rights of the Authority and, lastly, whether the Needs of the customer can be aligned with the needs of the business.
NewBusiness.Dev START DIRECT(ly)™ Methodology
Unfortunately, the S.C.O.T.S.M.A.N does not work well when qualifying public sector bids. In light of this, NewBusiness.Dev has developed their own methodology called START DIRECT(ly)™. This approach can be broken down into two sections. First and foremost, can we bid? We apply S.T.A.R.T to this question and consider: the need for and access to Sub-contractors; the Timeline; need Alignment; Resource capacity; and whether we have the relevant Testimonials. Given that we are satisfied that these requirements are met, we move onto the second phase of the Bid Qualification process; should we bid? In answer, we apply D.I.R.E.C.T and consider: whether we can Deliver on time; the possibility of Incumbents; the Relationship with the customer; Evaluation criteria; the Competition and the Terms of the contract.
If you would like to know more about our Bid Qualification Service or would be interested in attending a free UK Public Sector Business Development workshop, then please call us on +44 (0)207 960 2801 or send us an email to learnmore@newbusiness.dev.