Improve Your Bid with 5 New Year Resolutions

It’s worth thinking about ways to increase your bid success as we begin a new fiscal year. It is important to ensure that your tender management procedures are efficient. This is the perfect time to review and reflect on last year’s performance.

This blog will examine common roadblocks experienced in bid management by 2024.

Adopt Digital Transformation as your first bid success resolution

Many Bid Teams are still using generic business applications like email and spreadsheets for managing tender projects. This can lead to a significant reduction in the efficiency of their work.

It is almost impossible to achieve seamless collaboration, communication and activities across and throughout the entire bid journey. Unnecessary delays can quickly consume precious time. It can be at the time of handovers between teams (sales qualification, project mobilisation), or during activities like information requests that depend on Subject Matter Experts.

It can lead to a rush of decisions on tenders, the creation of content and the submissions of bids in order to meet deadlines. This can lead to lower evaluation scores and a reduced rate of winning.

A dedicated tender management system, such as Tender Eyes , that manages the entire process can be a game-changer.

This platform will give all team members a powerful tool to complete more complex tasks and work smarter, at each stage of the bidding journey.

Tendering and sourcing opportunities
Content Management
Project mobilization and coordination
Generating bid submissions
Securing sign-offs and approvals
Reviewing results and performance.

The right technology can reduce manual errors, and save valuable time that your Bid Team or Subject Matter Experts could use to refine tender responses and submissions. All for your bid success!

Resolution 2: Review and streamline processes

Inefficient working practices are very common due to the complexity of bid management. This includes the coordination and integration of data, people and tasks. Particularly when teams work across disciplines with different roles and responsibilities.

The impact of repetitive manual tasks, data entry, and content creation on team morale, engagement, and performance is impacted by the use of.

Understanding current processes, identifying bottlenecks and redundancies and areas of improvement is the first step to achieving efficiency. A business process management plan will help you to implement change.

From the initial identification of opportunities to the final submission, each stage in a tendering process should be examined to identify areas which can be optimised and streamlined.

Software for tender management can help you implement significant improvements in your processes. This includes:

Rapid Project Mobilisation With automated notifications and Kick-off Meeting Invites
Automated workflows
Task automation and reminders
Machine learning and AI to speed up content search, return and generation.

The solution is flexible and can be used for simple automations or time saving, as well as more complex ones.

This resolution helps to identify inefficiencies and lays the foundation for targeted improvements. A thorough audit of the process can help improve bid management by improving communication channels, clarifying roles, and updating outdated procedures.

Resolution 3: Encourage stronger collaboration

Effective alignment and collaboration among team members are essential for efficient tender management. This is especially difficult when there are many people working in different teams, divisions, time zones and geographical locations. This is especially true when many people involved in the process have their own responsibilities.

Your Bid Team must build strong relationships with other parties involved in the tender project. Contributors must be familiar with the tendering process, their roles and responsibilities, as well as any challenges. All parties will be more committed and work together better.

Read about – Why Ispring Suite is High in Demand among Elearning Beginners

To effectively manage workloads, it is essential to notify early of any project involvement or requests for information/tasks. Access to important information, documentation and insight is essential for a better understanding of project and customer requirements.

The implementation of a solution for tender management will serve as a central repository to meet all collaboration requirements. This includes:

A bid library or knowledge bank
Automatic invitations, notifications, and reminders
Tools for content creation and collaboration
Built-in decision gates, feedback circuits, and audit trails that help to steer better informed decisions, innovation, and rapid issue solution.

Collaboration is key to a successful tendering process. It not only helps speed up the process, but it also keeps everyone on the same page. Communication that is streamlined reduces the chance of misinterpretation, and therefore errors. This leads to better-quality tenders and successful bids.

Resolution 4: Improve Data & Content Management

The data is crucial to the success of a tender. This valuable asset can be difficult to manage and access without proper management.

The search and retrieval of critical data and intelligence is a time-consuming and frustrating task. This can have a significant impact on the overall efficiency of the tendering process. Information that is inaccurate, outdated or duplicate can have a negative impact on the chances of winning and could put the company at risk financially and reputationally.

The first step in providing high-quality data and content for those involved with the bidding process is to conduct a data audit. It is important to also identify the content owners, data management tasks and responsibilities.

By adopting a dedicated system for tender management, you will have a single source of information and data that is easily accessible. This includes:

Alerts to Tender Notices and procurement agency documentation
Sales insights: key risks and facts, competitor themes, winning criteria, and scores
Pricing matrix and product lines
Questions and answers, scores and approvals
Content of the Bid Library: includes ownership, status and expiry dates
Tasks – Ownership, start and end dates, reminders, completion.

A dedicated tender management platform helps ensure that data and information are stored, reviewed and updated accurately. All decisions will be made with more information and risks and roadblocks can be identified and dealt with.

Solving data management challenges can improve your bid management and lead to better responses and higher evaluation scores.

Promote a culture of continuous improvement

It is not an overnight achievement, but a continuous commitment to improve work efficiency. If bid management results and performance are not regularly reviewed and analysed, it is possible that further inefficiencies or roadblocks will be overlooked and the results may continue to suffer.

The team members can become disengaged and frustrated with the process or activity. Opportunities to save time or relieve deadline pressures are missed.
To remain motivated and competitive, it is important to foster a culture that encourages continuous improvement. Encourage your team to provide feedback, make suggestions for process improvements, and participate actively in the evolution of your tender management workflow. Make sure that reviews are conducted after every tender submission and decision.

You can review the results, activities and workflows of your tenders by leveraging your bid management software. Dashboards, Kanban Boards, Charts and Analysis of Tender Scores can all be viewed on the platform. Data can also be exported to further report.
Insights can include:

Delays and roadblocks in the workflow
Resource Limitations
Poor scoring tender responses
Winning rates and positioning of competitors
New Trends, Innovations, or Customer Needs
Audits of performance and security.

Data-driven approaches to tender management will identify areas of improvement, both in terms of efficiency and the delivery and quality of tender responses.

By fostering a culture that encourages continuous improvement, your organization will remain agile, responsive and on the cutting edge of industry best practice.