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Pre-Mortems
Avoid the dreaded “if only”. Identify and fix the causes for losing — before they happen.
Why:
What could go wrong?
Being overconfident is one of the biggest risks a company faces on bids.
Only thinking about how you will win can lead to optimism bias and complacency, whereas considering why you might lose gives balance and realism, making the resulting tactics more complete.
Where bid strategies focus on how to win, pre-mortems focus on how to not lose. Combined, they’re incredibly powerful.
WHAT:
We present your team with an ‘unthinkable’ hypothesis – they’ve lost the bid and now they must work out why. We challenge them to identify the root causes and take preemptive measures to avoid them, while there’s still time.
Conducting a pre-mortem during pre-market engagement and at the start of each major phase of a deal can help you identify blind spots, re-prioritise threats and increase your chances of success.
Experience and research show pre-mortems create a space where people can be open and creative about their concerns, rather than hiding them for fear of sounding negative. This emboldens and galvanises them to overcome adversity and bid with confidence.
Results:
- A stress-tested plan for how not to lose.
- A better probability of winning by identifying and tackling threats.
- An emboldened team motivated to overcome the prospect of losing.
Independent Evaluation
Don’t leave winning to chance. Score your bid before your customer does.
Why:
Highest score wins
When public sector contracts are won or lost by fine margins, you need to do what it takes to earn the highest score possible.
Months of hard work can hinge on a 1 or 2% difference in score to your nearest competitor. Don’t let that happen to you.
Engaging us as your independent critical friend will give you an impartial assessment of your proposal’s score and how to improve it, letting you submit with confidence.
What:
Independent Evaluation
We forensically assess compliance with the tender questions and evaluation criteria to check you’re fully answering the question and achieving the highest possible scores.
As well as awarding a score, we also look for clarity of message, risk, evidence, and win themes — the ‘so what’, ‘yes but’, ‘prove it’, and ‘why you’ to ensure your proposal is joined-up and compelling.
We breakdown the evaluation criteria and provide an assessment against each element so you can see why we’ve scored you the way we have. Our approach lets you track and improve the scores as your bid develops, guiding you to submit the best quality bid you can.
Retro ‘cold eye’ reviews
Have you just received another unexpected result and want to look back at why customers gave you the feedback they did?
We carefully analyse why bids were won or lost to help you learn the lessons and win next time. We provide a balanced assessment of strengths and weaknesses in a report with observations and recommendations you can act on.
We either review individual bids or a range to pick out trends that need attention — good or bad. One of those fiddly jobs it’s hard to make time for in your business.
Results:
- Identify how your bids can be improved, leading to higher quality submissions.
- Ensure bids are evaluated based on their merits and in accordance with your customer’s evaluation criteria.
- Understand why bids are won or lost to drive continuous improvement.
Tactical Support
Successfully navigate the complexities of bidding with a team of experts ready to step in and guide the way.
Why:
A team of sages by your side
Public sector bidding is complex. Knowing where to start and how best to play the game is only the beginning.
You need to adapt and respond to the latest methods, regulations and market realities with each new procurement that comes along.
We’ll help you make sure your team is ready and equipped to get ahead of the game.
What:
Pre-market engagement
Are you about to embark on a long complex procurement and want to know how best to approach it?
We use our extensive and up-to-date knowledge of public sector and defence procurement to help guide you through the various regulations and procedures – whether that’s the outgoing PCR2015 and DSPCR 2011 or the new PA23. We can also guide you through the new Competitive Flexible Procedure and how to approach it to your advantage.
We’re as involved as you want us to be. Whether you need an occasional sounding board or all-in consulting, you’ll find we’re as invested as you are. And like you, we’re always responsive to changing priorities and emerging situations.
Bid resources
Are you qualifying out of winnable deals due to lack of resource? Are procurement delays disrupting your resource plans? Whatever the reason, sometimes you need experienced experts to bolster your bidding capacity.
We have the in-house expertise and experience to perform the role of Bid Director, Bid Manager, Bid Coordinator, and Graphic Design on live bids. We also have a little black book of excellent contract bidding experts who we know and trust to deliver our services, letting us flexibly scale to meet your resource requirements:
- Bid Directors
- Bid Managers
- Bid Coordinators
- Bid Writers
- Graphic Designers.
Talk to us about your short term or long term resource needs.
Pitch planning
Everybody loves presenting. Don’t they? Just dust down the last slide pack and it’ll be fine. Won’t it?
We help teams prepare for presentations with an approach that puts customers first and slide decks last. Having an independent audience to plan and rehearse with can make all the difference.
What does the customer want to hear? What’s your ‘end in mind’? How will you make the right impact? It’s the small details that make a big difference.
Discover creative ways of presenting to make the right impression, putting you front of mind with the audience.
Results:
- Focussed expert guidance when you need it most.
- Troubleshoot and fix tactical issues on live bids.
- Become self-sufficient through our coaching and knowledge sharing.
Are you ready to make change?
We are. Are you?
Let’s talk – coffee is on us.