Bids and Tenders

How to prepare a winning bid

You’ve heard the horror stories.

The scoping team had burned the oil, the deliverables and dependencies stacked up, and the finance guys had turned over all the usual stones.

It’s staggering, then, that the bid document missed the mark.

Not really. Proposal writing isn’t just about finding a dumping ground for facts and figures.

Winning at the tender game is not just about the technical stuff – it’s a project which requires planning, coordination and a sprinkling of angel dust.

Here are some tips to help you make the process more productive and less stressful.

  1. Get started on your response as soon as you receive the request for tender – and contact us for a quote.
  2. Appoint a project manager within your team to coordinate all those involved and keep track of the progress.
  3. Allocate sections to those who are best equipped to answer them.
  4. Set a timeline for information gathering, first draft, feedback, design, etc and circulate it to everyone involved.
  5. Create a progress tracker with task allocation, deadlines, etc.
  6. Think about the design early – this isn’t something that can be left to the last minute as it can be very time-consuming.
  7. Set regular meetings with all those involved in the tender process to make sure everyone’s on the same page – or in this case, to make sure everyone’s not working on the same page and all areas are being covered by someone.
  8. Keep track of who has provided updates for which version of the document (using tracked changes or a different font colour) and what has changed since the last version.
  9. Focus on finding the facts and figures you need for each section. Once you have the content, we can polish it for you so it sounds like the document you need it to be.
  10. Factor in enough time for proofreading – a tender with typos won’t make a good impression.

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Bids and Tenders