Preparing to write a tender
Tender Planning
Now that you have decided to go ahead, don’t start writing until you have thoroughly planned what you are going to say.
Step 1
Assemble the Team
The two main ‘players’ in the bid management process are the Bid Manager and the Marketing Manager. In a small bid, all these roles can be fulfilled by one or two people.
Plus somebody needs to take care of the ‘back of house’ jobs to deal with the range of correspondence, documents, drawings, meetings minutes, approvals etc generated that will need to be distributed, compiled, and stored.
Step 2
Plan your bid
The best investment of time in this process is spent reading the requirements thoroughly and discussing them as a group, page by page. A common understanding will occur through this process, and questions for the Buyer may arise.
After all members of the bid team are “on the same page”, planning in earnest can begin, and is best approached in three stages (below).
Step 3
Set the Strategy
Your bid strategy considers:
- your existing technical capability,
- customer requirements,
- competitors capabilities,
- potential team members, and
- any significant aspects of the procurement that could impact your probable success.
It maps out the way in which you will present yourself so that you score higher than the midpoint score on all qualitative criteria.
Step 4
Plan the solution
Ideally, the planning phase should take no more than one-third of the time available to prepare the response.
The output from a planning session should be a task list with responsibilities and timeframes assigned.
Anticipate that some tasks will be completed late, and allow plenty of buffer in your timeline to avoid stress closer to the due date.
