By Dick Johnson
Time is always against you
The production of detailed responses to detailed bid documentation has become a necessary evil in most large-scale industries in the UK and beyond. Sometimes ill conceived, often repetitive and normally unduly onerous, the tenders give organisations very little leeway in terms of their response and precious little time to make their submissions. Like it or not however, all organisations have to compete and are therefore continually forced to improve the way in which they do so. For many organisations, this has meant appointing dedicated bid teams who spend virtually all their working life incarcerated in dedicated bid environments; depending on the security requirements of the bid, such environments are often subject to stringent controls. Although timescales are always tight, due to the sheer size of many these tenders, such teams are likely to be working on responses for many months and in some instances several years.
Don’t use the bench!
As somebody who has worked within such teams both as a manager and a proposal writer and who has also worked outside such teams as a marker, I am constantly surprised that despite the huge effort and costs involved, some very obvious points are often overlooked. For instance, there has always been a tendency in the IT and BPO industry to use people who are currently sitting on the ‘bench’ as opposed to the most appropriate person for the job. There has also been a tendency to use people simply because they are available; the fact that writing is not their forte seems to be completely irrelevant. Most worryingly however is that many organisations have made little investment in the production of ‘boilerplate’ or standard text and graphics, instead relying on information that was used in previous bids that has now become the de facto standard on the subject. This means that organisations are often reusing poorly written, inaccurate and contradictory text simply because at some stage it managed to get through a previous Red Team review; or even worse, reinventing the wheel on each and every occasion.
Boilerplate text – the starting point to success
One could argue that in the grand scheme of things does this really matter? Well yes it does. In most instances bid responses are being sent to specialist organisations for marking and in the early stages of the bid in particular, it is these marks that will determine whether an organisation gets through to the next stage or not. Organisations should seek therefore to maximise their score which means providing well written, current and accurate text supported by professionally-produced meaningful graphics. This means using boilerplate text in those areas that reoccur time and time again, such as: company background and information; capabilities, standards, techniques and methodologies; and clients and case studies.
However, avoid the pitfalls…
Having suggested that the use of boilerplate text has to be the way forward, there are of course pitfalls that have to be avoided! Firstly, boilerplate text has to be maintained in a well controlled library. Secondly it has to be kept up to date, especially in the area of company information where data may be changing on a regular basis. And thirdly and most importantly, it should be used sensibly; the most critical aspect of any individual question is answering the requirement in full but within the published guidelines therefore boilerplate text should always be tailored so that it exactly meets the requirement. Remember that the overuse of boilerplate text is very obvious and can be very tedious for the marker – use it sensibly and sparingly and you will save time, improve the quality of your response, gain higher marks and therefore improve your chances of winning.
If you would like to talk about some of the issues highlighted in this blog or would like help driving growth for your business, then please email info@essential-edge.com.
