For many organisations, winning bids is one of the major ways to get new contracts and earn revenue. Effectively managing the procurement process and furthering your chances of winning your next bid, however, requires more expertise and training than many people realise. This is one of the reasons why good bid managers are so highly sought after in the procurement business.
The procurement process consists of a number of steps, and without a proper bid management system in place, it can be very easy to fall by the wayside. Many companies have missed out on winning contracts due to very minor reasons, such as a misunderstood question, a missing document or poorly managed deadlines. However, it is very rare for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to have a full-time bid manager on their payroll, but many large companies do have an entire team dedicated solely to finding new contracts and bid writing.
Let’s take a look at what bid management entails and whether your company is in need of a bid manager.
What is bid management?
A bid manager is much like a project manager. They take over the entire process of procurement, from completing the Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs) and Invitation to Tenders (ITTs) to setting up a team responsible for the research and procurement of required licences and documents and creating deadlines for each individual step of the bid writing processes. They will also keep the team on track and ensure the tender proposal is submitted well ahead of time, in addition to following up with the bid after submission.
Bid management, however, begins well before the Request to Tender (RTT) is issued. When not actively working on a tender proposal or PQQ, the bid manager will be busy finding the right tenders to bid for, preparing templates to use in the next proposal your company prepares, as well as organising any supporting documents that may be mandatory for your line of business. They will also keep track of any recent projects you complete and create case studies for them to be able to quickly refer to them when the time comes to write a new proposal. All of this preparation helps simplify the tender preparation process the next time around.
Finally, the bid manager is also responsible for ensuring compliance with all mandatory and recommended criteria, making sure all questions in the tender documents are answered in the best possible way and making certain everything is well edited and proofread before it is submitted. Depending upon the size of your company or the value of the tender you’re working on, all of this might be the job of a single person or may be a team of individuals working together for a common objective: winning that tender.
Who needs bid management?
Many small businesses believe bid management is only for large corporations or those bidding for multi-million dollar projects. In reality, all business owners hoping to win new work through tendering can benefit from enlisting the help of a bid manager to oversee the procurement process.
For small and medium-sized businesses who submit maybe two or three tender proposals per year, it may not make much sense to add a dedicated bid manager to your payroll. These companies then decide to outsource this aspect of the procurement process to bid management and writing consultancies, which may even prove to be more beneficial than hiring a full-time bid manager. Here’s why:
Benefits of Outsourcing Bid Management:
- Takes the pressure off your employees:
Your employees were likely not hired to prepare and write bids for the company. Expecting them to do so without any prior experience of the task is likely to raise anxiety levels and decrease productivity. It is when employees are repeatedly pulled away from their tasks that your business suffers. Outsourcing your bid management tasks to a professional will ensure your employees are free to do their own jobs. - Access to professionals:
Bid writing and management companies are filled with talented individuals with a penchant for finding the right words to paint you in the best possible light. Not only this, but because of their extensive experience writing tender proposals for various organisations and industries, they know what evaluators are looking for from proposals. Some may even have served as evaluators in the past, which gives them unique insight into both sides of the procurement process, raising your chances of winning your next contract. - Saves money and time:
Outsourcing bid management has been proven time and again to be more cost-effective than adding a full-time manager to your payroll. This is because it frees up your employees’ time to focus on other aspects of the business, and you can choose to engage a bid manager on a needs basis as opposed to a monthly salary. - Improved quality of work:
When you hire a professional who has been doing something for years and has made it his or her livelihood, you’re definitely going to get much better results in the form of a higher quality bid with higher chances of winning. They will also be able to provide an outsider’s perspective on things, something that may be hard for an internal bid manager to do once they’ve been at the job for a while.