You’ve identified a new tender you think your company could win and you’re ready to go. But do you allocate your budget on writing the bid first, or getting a professional tender evaluation?
The answer is clear but also complex. Before we look at why and what you need to consider in your deliberation, let’s quickly look at the differences between tender bid writing and tender evaluation.
What is tender bid writing?
Bid writing is preparing tender documents with the aim of winning contracts for your company. The process usually begins with the bid writer (or writers) taking rough notes from subject matter experts or content from previous proposals.
From these notes, your writers will craft compliant, relatively easy-to-read and competitively differentiated tender responses targeting the specific client requirements (called ‘mandatory’ and ‘comparative’ requirements).
How can bid writing help me with my tender?
Bid writing services are especially useful if – as is very common – your subject matter experts are not natural bid writers! Subject matter experts tend to write in their ‘own style’ rather than address the specific requirements of the client.
A bid writer uses persuasive language, writing the tender in such a way that it addresses the client’s point of view, their needs and adds value to their organisation.
What is tender evaluation?
Tender evaluation is the process of assessing the compliance and competitive differentiation of a tender response – before the tender is submitted!
Using the client’s evaluation criteria, a tender evaluation will establish what the evaluation score would likely be and improve that written response before submission.
How does tender evaluation help with my tender?
Bid evaluation services can make the difference between losing or winning the tender. From experience, we know this difference can often be in the low single digits, sometimes as low as 2 or 3%, so every extra point counts.
When our team at Tender Evaluation evaluate a tender, we not only score your tender response drafts but show you how and suggest ways to improve your bid, to increase your evaluation scores.
How do I choose between bid writing and tender evaluation?
So, with this background, let’s layout the main factors you should consider whether to use bid writing or tender evaluation services. here are three things to take into consideration:
1. What is the risk that your organisation won’t proceed beyond submitting your tender response?
For example, if you are responding to an EOI (Expression of Interest) and your Client has formally indicated that all bidders will progress to the next phase, then the risk to you and your company is probably low.
So, in this case, you would use bid writing services to reduce the writing workload on your subject matter experts, who – let’s face it – have their busy day jobs to do as well.
But let’s say that, in the EOI document, your Client has stipulated Mandatory Requirements that are quite difficult to comply with. Some good examples of this would be:
- a Client indicating it wants unlimited Liquidated Damages relief.
- a product type or feature that is uncommon.
- an implementation timeframe that is uncommonly short.
Clearly, now there is risk. If you can’t comply with those Mandatory requirements, your organisation won’t proceed to the next phase.
So, in this case, you would use tender evaluation services because you really need to know what scores your response would get, and what options you have to best explain your position regarding the Client’s requirements.
2. Do you know the evaluators and decision-makers well enough to have identified their informal requirements as well as the formal ones?
The client’s decision-makers always include informal requirements in their tenders. Some examples of this may include –
- A preference for a particular solution – be that product, service or approach.
- A preference for a particular organisation – be that the incumbent provider (or not!).
- A preference for a particular person or people within organisations (this is why Client interactives increasingly include a ‘closed door’ session where the Client provides specific guidance on which personnel a bidder should consider replacing).
In various ways, your Client Evaluators are briefed on these informal requirements and they take them into account in their evaluation of submitted responses.
So, if you are not aware of these informal requirements – perhaps because it’s the first time you have responded to a tender from this Client, we highly recommend you use bid evaluation services. Certainly, you really need to know what you need to write to pick up every possible extra evaluation score.
At Tender Evaluation, our evaluators use their corporate knowledge of common informal evaluation criteria. We will also ask questions to you and your sales team to identify likely informal evaluation criteria for your specific Client.
3. Do you need to win the business?
When we say win the tender, we don’t mean ‘We go into tenders wanting to win every time’. We mean ‘We have to land this deal: it’s a perfect match for our company and will underpin our business for a significant period of time’.
In that case, you would use bid evaluation services because, similar to the example above, you really need to know what additional ways your organisation can meet the tender criteria to pick up every possible evaluation score.
Other nuances to consider when choosing between bid writing and tender evaluation
Like everything, there are some nuances to consider. Let’s look at them now.
Firstly, as is often the case, you use bid writing and tender evaluation services in tandem but in varying ways depending on the tender.
For example, you might use bid writing services to help some subject matter experts meet the deadlines for their tender response documents.
In addition, you might use bid evaluation services to review the harder responses but not the straight-forward responses.
Secondly, during the tender evaluation process, you may discover that you need bid writing because the evaluation score of a particular tender response document was unacceptably low.
Thirdly, there is a budget risk to consider: it is relatively easy to overuse bid writing services because what starts off being a relatively simple response turns out to be time-consuming. The bid writer is part-way through: you normally choose for them to continue, but that hits your bid budget.
Tender evaluation services are usually fixed price: for example, it will cost you $X to evaluate a fixed number of tender response documents. So, if the evaluations take longer than planned, then your bid budget is protected.
What should you do if you don’t have money for both? Clearly put, if it’s a risky situation for your organisation (for the reasons stated above), you’d use bid evaluation services because you’ll find out what score your submission will likely get and you can then make decisions to improve it.
What should you look for in a provider of tender evaluation services?
Firstly, you’re looking for how many evaluations they’ve done in say the last six months. Bid evaluation processes change very rapidly, so you’re looking for up-to-date knowledge.
Secondly, you’re looking for how well they understand the subject matter, not necessarily the industry. For example, the asset management of aircraft fleets follows similar principles to that of rolling stock; service delivery in the wastewater industry is similar to that of oil and gas distribution.
And lastly, you’re looking for someone who is good under pressure: you don’t want your phone ringing every hour with questions and concerns.
With all that in mind, you’re now set to consider what tender services you need. If you need help with bid writing, we are happy to open our contacts list to recommend you the right and experienced bid writer for you and your organisation.
If you need a tender valuation service to align your bid for success, we offer a free 30-minute assessment of your company’s proof of claims for each of the tender criteria.
Get started on your tender response evaluation strategy today
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