Competitive bid management

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Course Overview

This focused one-day programme will help you win more business - an invaluable opportunity for anyone seeking to develop their knowledge and skills at the same time as improving their contribution to the bottom line.

Competitive tendering is an essential aspect of doing business for most organisations but there is no denying that for both buyers and sellers it is a time-consuming and costly process with advantages and disadvantages for both parties.

If you are involved in submitting bids and competitive tenders, what can you do to maximise your chances of success? You need a structured, strategic approach matched by a keen focus, the discipline to decline invitations to tender where necessary and the ability to propose compliant yet cost-effective solutions to client needs. This requires a detailed understanding of those needs and the establishment of good working relationships.

Easy? No. Possible? Definitely - and this programme will help you! Follow the advice of the expert presenter of this one-day seminar and reap the rewards. He will give you a structured approach, complete with a range of easily understood and simply applied tools. This will ensure that you and your company are better equipped to survive and prosper in the maelstrom of competitive tendering.

Five key benefits

• Set out the essential principles for effective tendering in a competitive market.
• Help you appreciate the client's roles and responsibilities.
• Explain clearly the role and responsibilities of the Bid Manager and other members of the Bid Team.
• Enable you to construct an 'ideal' proposal.
• Give you ideas for improving the bid management process in your company.

Above all, this programme will help you win more business - consistently, more efficiently and more profitably!

Audience

• Business development directors / managers
• Bid and proposal managers
• Contracts and commercial directors / managers
• Sales and marketing directors / managers
• Account managers
• Project / programme managers

This programme is relevant to anyone involved in tendering for either public or private sector contracts.

Skills Gained

• Set out the essential principles for effective tendering in a competitive market.
• Help you appreciate the client's roles and responsibilities.
• Explain clearly the role and responsibilities of the Bid Manager and other members of the Bid Team.
• Enable you to construct an 'ideal' proposal.
• Give you ideas for improving the bid management process in your company.

Above all, this programme will help you win more business - consistently, more efficiently and more profitably!

Course Outline

The competitive bidding process - an overview

• What is competitive tendering?
• Why is competitive tendering important?
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Buyer's perspective
• Seller's perspective
• Price reductions
• Myths and legends
• Legal status of a 'bid' or 'proposal'
• Specific situations, eg:
• Public procurement: legislative drivers
• Overseas complications: tender bonds

Understanding the client's procurement process

• The client's process
• The client's organisation
• Client's role in the procurement process
• Time, place and product
• The ice cream vendor
• Supplier / buyer positioning
• Managing and maintaining the key relationships
• Pre-qualification
• Vendor databases
• Vendor evaluation

The bid/no bid decision-making process

• What to do on receipt of the invitation to tender
• Bid/no bid decisions
• The strategic model
• Effort versus return
• Identifying 'show stoppers'
• The tactical model
• The devil in the detail
• Collaborative needs
• SWOT analysis
• Teaming arrangements
• Joint ventures
• Joint stock
• Alliances
• Partnerships
• Communicating the decision to the client

Managing the tender response

• Selection of the Bid Manager
• The Bid Manager
• Role
• Skills
• Responsibilities
• Real and virtual Bid Teams
• Formation of the core Bid Team
• Roles
• Skills
• Responsibilities
• Co-opted members of the Bid Team
• Winning themes and strategies
• Structure and format of the proposal
• Controlling and monitoring the bid process
• Storyboarding
• Selection and use of the 'Red Team'
• Clarification requests
• The ideal proposal
• Submitting the finished tender
• Ensuring compliance
• Making an impact
• Follow-up
• Responding to the decision
• Next steps

Improving bidding efficiency and effectiveness

• Measuring bidding effort and returns on that effort
• Recording and analysing the win/lose statistics
• Feedback and change for the better

Competitive bid management / CM-CBM