If you want to bid to win tenders you will want a strong bid strategy.
A strong bid strategy means that your objectives must be;
- To score more points than any of your competitors with your tender
- Have a compelling case to make when you are invited to present
Scoring More Points
Scoring more points in the tender will be a combination of quality of response and competitiveness of pricing.
In theory, the better the score you get for quality of response the less you need to reduce your price. The trouble with this theory is that you don’t know how you are going to compare with your competitors. If you really want to win the tender you need to pitch your price at the lowest at which you would be happy to take the contract on – plus a bit. The reason you want this bit is so that you have left yourself something to negotiate with. There is a high chance that you will need to make some sort of concession. Of course, when you get to negotiate, your negotiating skills may enable you to win concessions in return. So think very carefully about pricing.
In terms of quality of response, I have written many blogs on this topic. Read carefully what the tender documents say about scoring – and do exactly that. Put yourself in the position of someone marking your submission with a critical eye, go through the exercise of marking your tender and revise it with this in mind.
Presenting
It is your chance, at the presentation, to introduce the Wow Factor. Make sure that you address exactly what you have been asked to, and then add your Wow Factor on top of that. (Don’t ignore the basics though!)
If you can make the buying team want to buy from you, and then provide them with the rationale to do so, that is the winning formula!