When your organization focuses on growth, it is tempting to bid on all tenders that land in your mailbox and that your competitors probably also want to bid on.
All tenders can lead to tasks and revenue for a company. But not all tenders match your company’s current situation or the goal of your organization.
How do you best use your time on tenders and how do you select the tenders that look promising and deselect those that do not match your organisation?
“Go or no go”
In order to make the decision, a “bid or no bid” procedure (also go/no go) must be introduced, preferably in consultation with your tender staff.
It is not about selecting the tasks and tenders in your pipeline that you want to win, but about discarding all future tasks and tenders that you are certain to lose.
For most companies, it is a big investment to tender, in time and lost resources on other important tasks.
The bell must ring
If you as a company have set out to bid on all tenders that relate to the company’s service or product, the result is undoubtedly wasted resources, a low win rate and an overworked tender team that does not “ring the bell” as many times, as had been the case if the focus was on bidding for tenders that were sure winners.
Five questions
The overall way you can establish the basis for your decision and carry it out is to ask yourself the following questions. Feel free to involve your tender employee(s).
If you answer clearly “Yes” to all the criteria below, go for the contract.
• Is the project/tasks in line with your organisation’s long-term goals and/or is it a short-term task which could be an exciting reference case?
• Does your company have the capacity to meet the requirements and conditions in the tender material and the time to comply with the tender deadline?
• Will the contract create value for your company and at the same time be able to create a bottom line?
• Do you have offer material in your offer library from previously answered tenders, which you have experienced worked, and which can help you to prepare a solid response in a thereby easy and efficient way?
• Do you know which of your competitors are bidding on the tender? Do you know the evaluation team at the client and thus know how big your chances are of winning?
Consider whether it is a match
If you answer more than 2 times: “Yes, but” or “Yes, if” to the above criteria, without having a realistic and sustainable solution to your “but” or “if”, then consider whether the current offer is a match for your company and whether your time could be better spent on other tasks.
Approx. 65% of tender employees feel that their quantity and relevance in tasks is the biggest stress factor in their lives. This means that many tender employees burn out and call in sick for shorter or longer periods, because the management does not focus on the “low-hanging fruit”.
Win more contracts at less cost
By introducing a “bid/no bid” procedure in cooperation with its tender employees, it will ease the burden on the tender office, stop improving already poor tenders, and prevent employee burnout. At the same time, the experience will be that you win more tenders quite quickly and reduce the annual costs associated with responding to tenders.
Always seek sparring with your network and use this constructively to make important decisions.
