You’d think that a company would listen when the consultants
they pay to write proposals tell them to no bid a job. Sure, we’d make money on the proposal - but
we’re not doing our clients justice by knowingly helping them to essentially
waste their B&P funds. So, today I
advised a client not to bid a job…and it’s not the first time either.
Revenue Demands. The pressure to win more work to meet aggressive numbers in
this tight economy is relentless. So
rather than circling the wagons and focusing on less opportunities that have
high pWins, I’ve noticed a trend in some companies to go in the opposite
direction. They choose the shotgun
approach, seemingly hoping that if they submit lots of bids, something will
eventually win. In almost every case
they are wasting time and money. And
more importantly, these efforts take resources away from better opportunities
with higher pWin rates.
From a proposal management perspective this approach is
really frustrating – it’s akin to playing the Super Bowl with a middle-school
team. Bidding on a low-probability RFP
hurts our win rates and makes our job really difficult – we want to write good
proposals, write them in a chaos-free pace, and we want to win.
What is a proposal consultant to do? It’s really quite simple – tell
your client you think it is a bad idea to bid the job. But, you need to support your case. Compile your own Bid/No-bid briefing based
on really basic concepts such as:- Strategy development including themes and discriminators
- Customer intimacy and domain knowledge
- Capabilities against requirements
- Relevant past performance
- Price to win and maturity of pricing solutions
- Teaming arrangements mapped to requirements
- Maturity of management and technical solutions
- Proposal Risks
Proposal Risks can make powerful
BNB cases. Develop Proposal Risks with
impact statements and risk management plans – remembering that some risks
cannot be mitigated and must be accepted.
Prepare this information and
present it to the Capture Manager and any other pertinent stakeholders. Explain that all these factors minimize your
ability to write them a compelling, winning proposal. Be concise yet complete. There is no guarantee they will cancel the
bid, but at least they go into the proposal informed - and you fulfilled your
obligation to be forthright with them.
Full Charge. Then it’s all out as you give it
your all to win despite the obvious challenges.
But, review the risks frequently with the client and keep them handy for
the proposal Lessons Learned and the win announcement lessons learned.
