What “evidence” really means in a bid response

Last month I reviewed a draft containing the phrase “our world-class support team”. I marked it down. The author was baffled. “We have told them we are world-class,” he said. “What more do they want?”

They want proof. Without proof, “world-class” is flimflam. Worse, it irritates the reader. An irritated evaluator will not give you the discretionary point that decides most competitions.

I see this in nearly every bid I am asked to review. Teams write beautifully about what they will do. They write very little that lets anybody believe it.

Evidence is not a compliment you pay yourself

Evidence is the material that lets an evaluator conclude, from your text alone, that your method will work for this client, on this contract, at this size. That is a much narrower test than most bid teams think.

Notice what it is not. It is not a statement that you are good. It is not your reputation. It is not the fact that you already hold the contract.

Incumbents fall into this trap constantly. “They know how good we are, so we do not have to prove it all over again.” You do. The evaluator may only score what you have written down. If she credits you for anything else, she opens the whole procurement to challenge. No procurement officer will take that risk. In Public Sector buying, getting the process right matters more than picking the best supplier.

It is worth half your words

My rule of thumb has not changed in twenty years. Spend half the word count on the solution and how you will manage it. Spend the other half giving the evaluator the assurance she needs to award full marks.

Your technical experts will tell you the word count is already too tight for the solution alone. They are wrong. A response that is nine tenths technical description will lose to one that is half technical description. I have watched it happen many times.

Build it on a credible method

Evidence only works on top of a solution the evaluator believes in. If she doubts your approach will work here, she will treat your evidence as irrelevant. So describe the method completely, at a level of detail a reasonable evaluator would expect.

Then stop. Detail beyond that point bores her. Bored evaluators skim. When they skim, they skip the very text that was going to win your points.

What every piece of evidence must contain

A reference is not evidence until it carries all of these:

• The name of the client. Add a line describing its business if the name will mean nothing to the evaluator.
• That client’s problem, stated so it is recognisably the same problem as the one in this question.
• Your solution, visibly the same method you are proposing here.
• The benefit, quantified. A number beats “it went well” every time.
• A testimonial in that client’s own words.
• The comparison. Say plainly that the organisation was similar in size and complexity to this one.

Leave one out and the reference weakens. Leave three out and you have written a boast.

Who says it matters

Convincing evidence comes from outside your business. Use the client who received the service. Use a market analyst. Use an awards body. The source must be someone this client will believe. Your own opinion of yourself does not qualify.

Show who does the work

Ownership is evidence of a different kind. For each step of your method, tell the evaluator who is responsible for its success, who performs it, when it happens, how you measure it, how you report it, plus what you do if it goes wrong. Name people where you can. Use their roles where you cannot.

Write it in the active voice. “The Project Director will build the plan” gives an owner. “A plan will be built” hides one. Evaluators notice the difference, even when they cannot say why.

Justify every choice

Where you had options, show them. Say why you picked this one. Say why that choice is best for this client.

This is powerful for two reasons. It proves your competence. It also proves you understand their business, which is the harder of the two to fake.

Tackle the risks head on

Here is the item almost every bid leaves out.

Scoring guidance increasingly says something like “all sub-criteria are fully evidenced”, without ever defining “fully” or “evidenced”. Under that wording, “we did this before and it worked” will not guarantee full marks.

What will? Deal with the balance of risk and benefit for each element of your solution. Every approach carries risk. Say so. Then set out how you overcame that risk on a comparable contract. Add what that client said about it. Explain how the approach transfers to this client, on this contract. State the benefits. Finish with your mitigation if the risk arrives anyway.

Work through each element this way and an evaluator marking against “fully evidenced” has nowhere to go but full marks. As a bonus, this approach sweeps up all the traditional evidence points. It also delivers the demonstration of understanding everybody asks for, without you having to bolt it on.

Is it easy? No. Start with the highest scoring questions. Brainstorm the risks, benefits and justifications before anybody writes a word. Writing is quick when the author already knows what to say.

Tie the proof to their worry

The client asked the question because something worries it. Find that worry. Then use the “so we” form: “You need out-of-hours cover for your users, so we have strengthened the evening team by …”.

Do not precis the question first. Do not explain their own problem back to them. Both waste words. Both annoy.

Make it easy to find

Evidence the evaluator cannot locate scores nothing. Use the client’s own words as bold headings. Answer in the order the question asks. Avoid your in-house terminology. Near the end, add a short section headed “Why you should choose us” that the evaluator can lift straight into her report. Somebody has to write that paragraph. Better you than a tired evaluator at half past five.

When the words run out

Sometimes you get 2,000 characters for a complex answer. Spend what is left in this order:

• A benefit for the client’s own customers.
• A benefit for the client.
• Where you have done it before.
• An award you won for it.
• Where the solution has worked elsewhere.
• The choices you had, plus why you chose this one.
• A testimonial from a similar client.
• Added social value.

Start collecting on day one

None of this is writable in the last week. Referees go quiet. Legal departments block them. What comes back is often so sanitised it is worthless.

So build your reference strategy into the bid plan at the start. Map several referees at different levels against the sections of the ITT. Write case studies while the project is going well, not months afterwards. Put a reference obligation into your own contract terms.

Points mean prizes. Evidence is where most of the points are hiding.

If you would like help finding the evidence for your next bid, we would love to hear from you. Please call Sixfold on 01227 860375 for a no-obligation chat.

Forging strong, meaningful and productive relationships across every part of the proposal cycle

A senior manager called me, baffled at losing a bid she expected to win. The solution was excellent, the price competitive, the track record unmatched. “There must have been some jiggery-pokery,” she said.

When we debriefed, the same problems emerged every time. The bid was built in a silo. Sales intelligence never reached the document. SME content was brilliant but unscorable. Senior management rewrote the executive summary at the last minute. Stakeholder management is where most winnable contracts are lost.

Everyone Has a Different Agenda – Our Job Is to Work With Them

The most persistent myth in bidding is that all stakeholders want the same thing. They do not. Sales wants the win. SMEs want to be seen as the expert. Senior management wants the contract with minimum disruption. Legal wants protection. The client’s evaluators just want to find what they need, score it, and go home. Treat them all the same way and you will spend the bid fighting people who should be on your side.

Maximising Stakeholder Contribution – Getting Them to Contribute in the Best Way

Sales: Stop Waiting to Be Invited

Bid professionals are invariably brought in too late. Stop waiting for an invitation and go and find the opportunity. Offer to facilitate the early capture session – not just to attend it, but to run it. You will get early sight of the client’s real issues, the competitive landscape and the win strategy. Over time, the sales team will stop seeing you as the people who ask difficult questions about word limits.

Subject Matter Experts: The People Who Know the Most and Try to Write the Least

SMEs are brilliant and essential – but they disappear the moment you need them to write in plain English. Brief them on the scoring criteria, not just the question. Give them a heading structure before they start. Set the deadline two days ahead of your actual one. Your deeper job is to translate between their expertise and the evaluator’s marking sheet. It is not a comfortable role. Own it anyway.

The bid that is easiest to win is the one you influenced before the questions were written.

Senior Management: Planned Involvement Beats Reactive Intervention

Senior management can be your greatest asset or a serious liability – sometimes both in the same bid. The executive who arrives at the final review and decides the executive summary needs a complete rework is familiar to everyone in the profession. The problem is rarely what they want; it is the timing. Get sign-off on the win strategy at kick-off. Brief them concisely at each key stage. When a late change is proposed, present the consequences calmly, with evidence. Most will back down – unless they think you are just being territorial.

The Client’s Evaluators: Make It Easy to Give You Top Marks

In public sector bidding, the window for direct relationship building closes when the ITT is published. Think about the evaluator’s day: a large, complex document, a scoring sheet, and pages of instructions. They will score what they can easily find and move on. Make it easy for them. Use their language, not yours. Use the words from their questions as your headings. Answer elements in the order they were asked. Do not open a response with your company name or “We” – the moment you do, you have moved from solving their problem to selling your solution. Evaluators notice, even when they cannot articulate why they marked you down.

The Final Word

The difference between a winning bid and a very good second place is rarely the quality of the solution. It is almost always the quality of the relationships with the stakeholders who surrounded it.

Build the relationships before you need them. Manage your stakeholders as carefully as you manage the document. The Bid Manager trusted by sales, respected by SMEs and taken seriously by senior management wins more bids than the one who is simply a good writer. And the moment you stop treating stakeholder management as a discipline – because it is “just common sense” – someone who is doing it properly will take your contract.

Understanding the numbers gives you massive competitive advantage

I’ve looked at how Social Value (SV) scoring works and found two surprising things. One helps you win more bids. The other raises questions about value for taxpayers.

A Simple Example

Here’s a scenario to show what happens. Two bidders submit identical solutions. They both score the same on quality. But they price differently:

• Bidder A prices at £10 million
• Bidder B prices at £11 million

You’d expect Bidder A to win, right? They’re cheaper and the solution is identical.

But Bidder B is smarter about Social Value. They score full marks (10 points). Bidder A only scores 5 points. Here’s how the scoring works out:

The Scoring Breakdown

The tender uses this scoring: Quality 60 points, Price 30 points, Social Value 10 points.

Bidder B wins even though they’re £1 million more expensive and the solutions are identical.

We have to ask: is the extra Social Value worth £1 million? I think the answer is no. Let’s say Bidder B spent £100k more than Bidder A to get those extra Social Value points.

What This Means

For Bidders: Huge Returns on Investment

Smart bidders can make serious money by investing in Social Value. Look at the numbers:

• Investment: £100k to develop better Social Value
• Extra revenue: £1 million (the buyer accepts the higher price)
• Net gain: £900k extra profit

These numbers are examples, but they show the point: spending on Social Value gives you massive returns. Companies that get good at Social Value win more work and charge higher prices.

For Taxpayers: Are We Really Getting Value?

As taxpayers, we should ask if this makes sense:

• The government pays £1 million extra
• The extra Social Value probably cost £100k to provide
• That’s £900k extra we’re paying for the same solution

Can the Social Value really justify paying £1 million more? Could we get better value spending that money differently? Do we want our public sector contracts to be won on the basis of getting things not actually addressing the needs the government organisation is trying to fix? Basically, should Social Value, however worthy in principle, override the core purpose of the procurement?

Ignoring the Morality of Social Value – What To Do About It

If You’re Bidding

• Make Social Value a priority – it wins contracts
• Build real partnerships with community groups
• Track what you deliver so you can prove it
• Put resources into it – the returns are worth it

If You’re Buying

• Check your scoring makes sense
• Ask for proof of Social Value delivery
• After the contract, check if you got what you paid for
• Think about whether you’re getting true value for money

The Bottom Line

Social Value is important. It helps contracts deliver wider benefits to society. But the way we score it can lead to strange results.

For bidders, this is good news. Get Social Value right and you’ll win more work at better margins.

For buyers and taxpayers, we need to be careful. Are we paying too much for Social Value? Could we get better results spending our money differently?

I haven’t seen much debate about this. I hope this article starts some discussion among buyers and bidders.

Plan to get testimonials from clients who won’t talk

After 20 years helping companies win public sector contracts, I’ve learned something painful. I spend a lot of my time advising clients on which references they need. Then supporting them through inevitable disappointments when public sector customers won’t help.

Late last year, my client pursued a strategic £2 million opportunity. They needed three references for “similar scale contracts delivered within the last 5 years.” Together, we identified their strongest public sector clients and we crafted a clear reference strategy.

Reality hits hard

They rang their best customer – a Local Authority where they had been delivering brilliant service for three years. “Could you provide a reference for our new tender?” they asked.

“Sorry,” came the reply. “Legal says we can’t give references until six months after completion. It is policy!”

Welcome to procurement’s game of snakes and ladders. I’ve been playing for 20 years. Just when you think you’re climbing, another snake appears.

The Last-Minute Disaster

The problem is often compounded because bid teams leave references until the last minute. They treat them as less important than the technical solution. All energy goes on crafting detailed technical descriptions. References become necessary evils, to be sorted out later.

Here’s what they don’t seem to get. In Public Sector evaluations, technical content must balance with all the other “point winning” elements, like compelling references. Without this balance, even the best technical solution will not win. I’ve seen brilliant technical responses lose to mediocre solutions. Why? The winner had stronger references and scored more points as a result.

The Professional Paradox

I recently supported a client through a three-week period where they tried to find suitable references. The leading one was a government department where they’d delivered spectacular results. We assumed excellent delivery meant easy testimonials. The only reference we could get was one which was so sanitised it was worthless.

Their technical solution was genuinely innovative. It would have transformed the prospective client’s operations completely. But without strong references to balance technical content, even their brilliant solution couldn’t (and didn’t) win.

Breaking the Runaround

After two decades supporting companies through reference challenges, I’ve learned something. Building reference strategies is a really important part of the bid strategy. When I help clients map their public sector relationships, at the outset we seek to identify multiple potential referees at different levels to cover the entire ITT elements.

Reference Strategy from Day One

Our advice: don’t treat references as afterthoughts. Build reference collection into your bid plan from day one and manage it. Plan a requirement for a reference into your contract terms. Make sure your business creates case studies during successful projects – not months after completion.

Remember, in Public Sector competitions, points mean prizes!

How to win contracts you can’t bid for whilst losing bids you should win

Joseph Heller may have invented the term Catch-22 to describe military bureaucracy, but surely even he never endured the maddening reality of modern public sector tendering. Had he done so, his central character wouldn’t have been trying to avoid flying missions; he’d have been frantically trying to prove “relevant experience” for a contract that requires the very experience you can only gain after winning it.

The Experience Paradox

Picture this: you’re reading an Invitation to Tender (ITT) that demands “a minimum of five years delivering identical services to similar organisations in comparable circumstances.” The twist? This is the first ITT of its kind ever issued by this government body. It’s like being asked to provide references from past lives before you’ve even figured out reincarnation.

This is the procurement world’s version of the age-old dilemma: needing a job to get experience, but needing experience to get a job. Only this time the stakes are higher, the deadlines tighter and the evaluation panels seemingly absent the day logic was taught.

Meanwhile, the procurement team sits comfortably behind their desks, having designed criteria so narrowly that only the current supplier could possibly qualify. And then feigning surprise when only one compliant bid arrives.

The Innovation Contradiction

Then comes the “innovation paradox.” Public sector buyers cry out for fresh, transformative solutions to revolutionise their operations. But only if you can prove you’ve successfully delivered the exact same innovation somewhere else.

“We want something completely new and different,” they demand, “but show us case studies of this very thing working perfectly already.”

It’s like boldly insisting on going where no one has gone before, while asking for a travel brochure and glowing Tripadvisor reviews from previous visitors. Innovation, it seems, is welcome. But only if someone else has paid to make it safe first.

The Competitive Tightrope

The evaluation criteria are no less baffling. You must be large enough to handle complex, high-value contracts, yet small enough to offer personal service. You need global reach but deep local knowledge. Cutting-edge technology but years of proven stability. Competitive pricing but premium quality.

In short, you must be Amazon and your local corner shop at the same time.

Evaluators expect a Rolls-Royce solution at Skoda prices, delivered with Ferrari speed and Volvo reliability. They want innovation without risk, detail without overload, and comprehensiveness in as few pages as possible. It’s like being asked to design a vehicle that’s simultaneously a motorcycle and a bus.

The Compliance Conundrum

And none of this matters if you can’t navigate the compliance minefield. Word limits that would frustrate Hemingway. Formatting rules so exacting they’d baffle a Swiss watchmaker. Submission portals less user-friendly than medieval torture devices.

Here’s the cruel irony. Bids that meet every compliance rule to the letter often lack the very creativity and innovation the buyer claims to want. Follow the rules too closely and you reduce your chances of winning. Another Catch-22.

Breaking the Cycle

So how do we escape this procurement purgatory? The answer lies in education, collaboration – and a touch of professional rebellion. We must challenge illogical requirements, help buyers balance risk with practicality, and propose smarter, more flexible ways to meet their needs without perpetuating these contradictions.

Your Mission (Should You Choose to Accept It)

Next time you spot a Catch-22 in a tender, don’t just grumble over coffee. I suggest you question it. Contact the procurement team. Suggest alternatives. Help them see the real world impact of their requirements.

And if they refuse to listen or adjust? Ask yourself “Do we really want a client who thinks like this?”.

I believe that we should all work together to make procurement more logical, fair, and effective. Because great bidding isn’t about jumping through flaming hoops – it’s about building bridges to better solutions for the taxpayer.

We sometimes offer pilot projects, trials or wholly “free of charge” goods, works or services to our clients. It is a common situation for companies wishing to break into new markets or expand their market share, to consider such commercial options with a view to annihilating their competition.

The Public Sector is no different. How can an Authority resist getting some needed service or product for free? And, if the product or service is provided at no cost, can the Authority then avoid the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR)?

Of course, introductory arrangements at no cost are usually linked to a contractual obligation to purchase later. Such contracts clearly fall within the scope of the PCR. Depending on the value and subject matter of the contract, a failure to advertise such a contract (or to use a valid framework) would amount to an illegal direct award, open to a range of legal remedies. But what happens if there is no such direct contractual commitment?

Recent Judgement

A recent case in Italy has provided more guidance on this issue. We now have clarification of how “free of charge” contracts are to be treated by the procurement rules.

The PCR defines a public contract as “contracts for pecuniary interest concluded in writing between one or more economic operators and one or more contracting authorities and having as their object the execution of works, the supply of products or the provision of services”. There has never been much doubt that “pecuniary interest” is wider in scope than just monetary payments.

In this case, the Court found that just because the service was provided “for free”, the supplier still received a “significant economic advantage” from the relationship with the public authority under the arrangements. In addition, whereas there was no charge for the service, the supplier in this case did charge a nominal fee to cover “transport costs”. The Court ruled that these transport costs alone, which were paid by a public sector grant, were sufficient to bring the arrangement into the scope of the PCR.

The Implications

This case confirms that we need to look at “no cost” or “free” contracts offered to public bodies very carefully. Any attempt to circumvent the normal procurement process through such a route is likely to fail. Furthermore, if we find such a situation involving one of our competitors, we need to challenge it immediately. You never know, you may end up with the contract as a reward for your diligence.

In summary, there does not need to be a direct economic benefit to the supplier for the contract to fall within the PCR provisions. If you are considering the way in which you might overcome a competitor by such an approach, please do have a no-obligation chat with us first about what you can do and the pitfalls you should avoid, on 01227 860375.

Keeping your cool when the bid is going wrong

Over my bidding and tendering career, I have had a few disasters. Some of them I have been able to recover from and a few have even resulted in the loss of a winning bid. Of course, the ones which have gone badly wrong can be difficult to bounce back from. Especially when there is no let-up in the number of new bids coming through.

What is more, it does not matter if it was not you that caused the disaster. You are the Bid Manager or the Bid Lead and you are responsible. So how do you keep going with this level of stress, knowing that whilst the pain of the last problem is still raw you still have yet another bid to get out? And someone is going to let you down somewhere along the line of that bid too (they always do!). And then you will still forget something, or the client or some senior person will change something at the last minute with no understanding of what the real consequences will be on everyone else.

So how do you keep your air of confidence? How do you stop being dragged down by waves of depression and then decide the only thing you can do is resign? And how do you keep your motivation up whilst everything around you looks like yet another impending disaster?

I am not a mental health expert and I don’t have all the answers. However, I can share with you some of the things which have kept me sane whilst trying to navigate through the pressure-cooker environment of the heaviest of bids.

Keeping Your Cool

When it all seems to be going wrong, it can be very difficult to keep things in perspective. When the “fires” are starting to look out of control, it is all too easy to lose yourself in getting more and more bogged down in dealing with them. So, my first strategy in dealing with the stress is to tell myself two things, both of which are in my bidding experience entirely true:

• Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears at first sight.
• In 6 months, this event will seem to be so trivial that you will not remember why you were so worried at the time.

Number 1 keeps me going in the direst of circumstances. Usually, after 24 hours you will have a solution or the problem will have been diminished in importance. “Sleeping on it” usually helps too. So, when you find that the person uploading the bid has put all the final pricing in in dollars instead of sterling, take a deep breath and don’t lose your perspective. After all, this is only one transitory incident in the ongoing cycle of the bid and once it is fixed, no doubt, there will be another problem turning up. And you will fix that one as well!

Number 2 is a great one to keep me grounded. As an example, can you remember the biggest bid problem you had exactly 6 months ago? I can’t even remember what I was doing 6 months ago without a lot of effort and I certainly cannot recall the problems! So, keep repeating 1 and 2 to yourself and then deal with the problems, one at a time, in a methodical way.

Take a Break

As the pressure builds, some people respond well and become more focussed. Anything not truly important gets ditched by them and the issues are overcome effectively. However, no one can keep this up for very long. After a while their decisions start becoming more reactive and mistakes start to happen. If you keep going, you will probably spend more time in correcting your own mistakes than moving the bid forward, and this helps no one.

My test is to be aware of when I start to make trivial mistakes: spelling or grammatical errors, dialling the wrong telephone number or something similar. When this happens, my internal alarm starts to sound and I know it is time for me to take a break.

Taking a break means getting away from the bid, the computer and the desk. It means not having a meeting about the bid. It means going somewhere and having a nap (preferably) or going to the canteen with a cup of tea and the daily paper for 20 minutes. It means clearing the mind of the immediate bid issues and recharging the metaphorical batteries.

When you get back, you will feel the increase in effectiveness. Your work rate will go back to where it was and your decision making will be better. This is one of my personal small investments which brings back a huge return.

Keep up the Humour

When the pressure is really on and the whole team is struggling to meet a critical deadline, the whole bid environment can become emotionally charged. One simple error or mistake from anyone in the team can trigger a disproportionate backlash from the others. Then the atmosphere gets worse and work rates decrease. Everyone hates the bid, the bid manager, the senior management team, the client and anyone else they can have a go at. Everyone just wants to get the bid over with and to go home. This is not the environment which will generally lead to a quality bid being produced.

My solution is to break the tense atmosphere with some humour, generally “black” humour. However, if you do this you must be very careful. You cannot make a joke at someone else’s expense unless everyone in the team gets it and the person who is being teased is liked and respected by everyone else (and gets it too!). Teasing the boss, whilst the boss is within earshot, can work well if you have the right sort of boss. Making self-deprecating jokes is also fine. However, the attempt at humour must be clearly that; snide remarks or “jokes” that will hurt someone will not help.

The stronger the team gets, the more this sort of humour helps. The humour cements the team when the going gets tough, so long as it is entirely inclusive to all members of the team. The humour seems to discharge some of the emotional pressure which can so easily build up. It lightens the atmosphere for everyone and improves productivity and bid quality.

If you are not a natural joker, try smiling broadly when you make your joke. Everyone will know it to be meant as funny. Then, if necessary, make sure you thank someone for something they have done as well. That way the joke will be seen clearly as a joke and you may start to see some other humour emerge elsewhere as the stress diminishes across the entire team.

Have a Clear Objective

As a bid manager, I am aware of the one overriding objective of the bid activity: get a winning bid out on time! However, half way through the bid that can seem to be an impossible task. People are not delivering what they promised and key decisions are not being made. Black clouds start to form over your head and a jump from a high building starts to look attractive.

My secret for this is “chunking”. I break down what has got to be done into manageable chunks and order them in the way I need to get them done. By this cunning method, I end up with my own action plan and critical path. Moreover, I don’t have to worry about hitting the end objective; if I stick to managing my chunks, the bid will be ready on time.

Of course, this is my plan for my activity. You will normally need a proper plan for the rest of the team too. However, creating the team plan is normally one of my first chunks.

So, keeping a clear objective for me is made up of having mini objectives that get me to the main objective when it needs to be reached. And, if I run into problems along the way, I just do a bit more chunking.

Don’t Waste Time

When the pressure is on, it is too easy to do something else to avoid doing the difficult bits you know you have to do but you just don’t want to do. So, you decide to fix the computer or unjam the printer instead. You tell yourself that these things have to be done and you justify to yourself that you are still “working on the bid”. However, then you find as the bid deadline approaches, you really do not have time to do some of the things that would lift the quality of the bid that last little bit.

Now, this diversionary activity is not the same as taking a break. Taking a break is needed to recharge the batteries. Wasting time does not do this as you are still working on something; it is just not something that helps you or the bid.

My technique for this is to watch myself and be critical about anything which I know to be a diversion. You need to encourage the little voice inside your head to nag you with “Do you really need to do this now?” In addition, once you tackle that important job you have been putting off by doing other things, your stress load goes down and the remaining jobs become, somehow, more manageable.

So Now You Know

I remain convinced that it takes a very special person to be a bid professional. Being an expert, a leader, an achiever and the person who sees the big picture is not enough. You have got to be resilient to all the issues that fall on you from the moment the bid starts running. More important, you have got to keep going whilst others around you have had enough.

If you are in this position, please try my cunning methods that I have found successful in keeping me going through the most difficult of times. And then use the euphoria which you feel after your “good” bid is delivered to the client to set you up to take on the next one.

You want to win a Public Sector contract and you know you are the best in the business. Then, out of pure luck, one of your team arrives with an opportunity to bid for a Local Authority opportunity that could have been written for you. The Local Authority’s office is just down the road. The requirement is all about your sweet spots. Plus, you have a great reference in a Local Authority in the next county, where you are already delivering a greatly appreciated service.

So, all you have to do is write the reply demonstrating what a good product and service you have and hope your brilliance carries the day. Or is it?

Even more beguiling is when you have been delivering these products and services, and the contract comes up for routine retendering. Here the procurement team already knows how good you are so you don’t have to prove that all over again. Or do you?

At Sixfold we often come across this, often after a competitor has taken the prize and we are asked to explain how it happened. How could our client, the “obvious” best in the market for the products and services, possibly have lost? Were there some shenanigans in the evaluation process or has something in the requirement been missed. It often turns out that they put in a good response in terms of an explanation of the plan and the technology. Even the pricing was competitive. However, this was just not enough.

So how does the next best provider triumph in Public Sector contracting? It does so because it works the Public Sector procurement process. Public Sector tendering is highly rules based. And if you know the rules well, and know how to finesse them, you can win even if your solution is weaker and your price is higher.

Typically, the Public Sector evaluator is given a set of marking criteria and a numerical score that he or she can award for each response against the completeness of the answer. To get a maximum score, the answer must hit every nuance of the criteria. As an example, here is a recent Local Authority scoring guidance for a maximum points award:

Outstanding: The response covers all elements of the criterion, and associated specified framework requirements and standards; and with a high level of relevant and detailed information, backed up with clear evidence; and demonstrates a robust and coherent understanding of the council’s requirements; and with no issues, weaknesses or omissions.

To get top marks it needs a good technical description of what will be provided – we are all good at doing this and covering all the elements. However, how often is the evidence and demonstration of understanding so well prepared? Yet, if this is not tackled with the same enthusiasm as the technical issues, it will be difficult to score more than “average”.

Moreover, it is not possible to hope that a good reputation or a marketplace position will carry the day. The evaluator may not take this into account unless it is written down as part of a required answer. If he or she tries to rely upon anything else but your written response, they will open up the whole procurement to challenge. No procurement officer would do that. Indeed, it is more important to get the process right than to get the best product or service.

In Public Sector procurement, our experience is that hope does not triumph over experience. And it is our experience that only half a winning response is about the technology and the solution. Our rule of thumb: half the words for the solution and half for the assurance the evaluator needs to give full marks. Just because you are “best” this will never guarantee success.

And the most important advice of all. Even if you know this, it won’t happen unless you embed the understanding in all of your bid processes. So if you are prone to thinking “yeah I know all this” (which I often do when reading articles like this) think again. What you should be thinking is “Yeah I know all this. But does everyone else in the bid team, and do they act upon it?” If the answer to all three questions is yes, you must be winning most of your bids. If not, then it’s time to act.

Why? Because they won’t do it!

We were told repeatedly to ‘read the question’ at school. I have always repeated that advice to my Foundation exam students. I even remind myself to do it. And still we get answers wrong because we haven’t fully answered the question. In the bids we review, my experience is that some questions go unanswered by the authors on every bid.

In fact, the Senior Procurement officer for Central Government agrees. He once said that the biggest reason that bidders lose marks is that they do not fully answer the questions asked. So, something is going wrong at a fundamental level.

Generally, all SMEs know they have to answer the question. They also know they should read the question in detail. So just reminding them to do it does not change anything. Instead, we need a process that enables it to be done effectively. Bid management needs to ensure the contributors have read the question and must take action where there is missing information in the response.

I think there are three steps to achieve this:

1. Deconstruct the question and share the result with your SME. Break the question down into its smallest component parts.
2. Ask the SME to verify that they have addressed every part of the deconstruction by self-checking.
3. Assign a member of the bid team to act as a verifier. They should review the question purely based on “Have all parts of the question been fully answered?”

You may well be asking yourself ‘What’s so special about all that?’ And I’d agree with you. It isn’t special. It’s really simple, but if it is done it makes a massive difference to the bid because you won’t lose points for ‘not answering the question’.

I’ve been doing this deconstruction and checking process on most bids I’ve been involved in for several years. This is because it filled a gap in our client’s processes. Typically, we found 5% of the questions would have gone unanswered. These clients won over £500m worth of contracts in the last two years. And who knows? Maybe they wouldn’t have been so successful if we hadn’t fixed those missing questions. The full magazine can be accessed at https://bidsolutions.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/BQ18-Pages-Final-250224.pdf It is full of useful bidding guidance.  If you would like to chat over how all or any this may affect you and your business, please give us a call at any time for a no-obligation chat.

Back to Foreword

How to deal with a clarification question from the client after bid submission

Blissful Ignorance

It was late on a dreary Friday afternoon, the sort that makes one contemplate the meaning of existence, we were snug in the Head of Sales’ office. It had been a hard week. There we were, nursing cups of machine coffee that bore an uncanny resemblance to over-steeped tea, nattering about tenders and jealously feigning enthusiasm for his imminent skiing holiday.

We were interrupted by a rap on the door. Without waiting, a junior member of the sales team came in. He was brandishing an email printout as if it was burning his fingers. “Did you see this, Boss?” he said and handed over an email printout. The Head of Sales skim-read the email. “Just give this one to Eileen. She is the sales lead and tell her to get the response in before she goes home,” he instructed. “Tell her I trust her to reread the bid and make up any bits she does not know.” With that, we carried on chatting until leaving time, oblivious to what was coming.

A few days after that, we got the letter from the client telling us we had come second!

Of course, this client question would have to be related to that strategically important, must-win bid that we had submitted a couple of weeks before. Everyone was relying upon this opportunity being won. After all, all the vibes we had had from the client until this point were that we should be clear winners. We knew we had an excellent solution and a very competitive price. How could it have got away from us?

Realisation

What we had overlooked was that a clarification email is giving you a final chance to come top.

We had not heard the alarm bells ringing underneath this simple clarification email. Eileen had done what she had been asked. She had simply pinched a few lines from the bid, spruced them up a bit, and dispatched the email – job done!

I learned a serious lesson from this. What we should have realised is that a clarification question at this stage signifies that the evaluators are unable to choose a winner. They cannot be sure of what the right score is for an element of our proposal. However, we can be certain that we are in the very top echelon of contenders. They will not send out a clarification question unless we have a real chance of winning. What we respond with will genuinely alter our evaluation score, possibly sufficiently for us to take the prize. Crucially, it’s our last shot to dazzle them and climb the scoreboard.

If we underplay the response to the client’s email it will probably cost us everything we have invested in this bid to this point. If we cannot use this opportunity to push our score up, our adversaries have a serious chance to eclipse us. And just like that, we’d be relegated to “runners up”. Exactly what had happened that Friday.

A Better Way

So, when that fateful clarification email lands in your lap, it should be all hands on deck. Summon the troops for an emergency meeting. I would look to include all the following people (no excuses):

• Top brass
• The sales lead
• The solutions guru
• The most innovative pricing staff
• The original bid authors for the areas covered
• Any other bright people who can contribute

Next, I would draft a battle plan together:

• Dissect the client’s query like a forensic scientist. Brainstorm every possible reason behind the client’s question.
• Reassess our initial response for any murky patches.
• Reflect on our submitted proposal and find opportunities to add a sprinkle of extra magic.
• Compose a response that’s so compelling, it deserves a standing ovation.
• Critically score our planned response against the client’s scoring system. Then see where we can improve it even more. Don’t miss this point in the plan!
• Look to offer something more to the client. We have another chance to communicate with the client about anything in our bid – make best use of it.
• Review, refine, and add the proverbial icing on the cake.
• Send the reply exactly following the client’s instructions.

Bear in mind, this is our moment in the spotlight. Include all the tantalising benefits, impacts, and highlight a snippet of our solution’s genius. Add in some testimonials and graphics that hit the mark. And don’t forget to clarify any other parts of the bid where we might notch up a few extra points.

Key Takeaways

• It’s easy to lose the bid at this juncture.
• Unearth the subtext beneath the client’s clarification question.
• Rally your finest minds and treat this with the utmost urgency – it’s a number one business priority.
• Make sure your reply lets the evaluators shower you with bonus points (use the scoring system).
• Don’t stifle your creativity by trying to reduce word count (unless the client specifies otherwise).

And there we have it: a tale of missed signals, unconsidered responses and a bid that slipped through our fingers. Let’s not repeat history, shall we? I hope that these few words will help you achieve this.

Using the formal clarification process as a competitive weapon

In our fast-paced world of Public Sector bid and proposal submissions, deadlines loom large, and the pressure on us to create a flawless proposal is immense. We think we have it all buttoned up. And then one of our SMEs says, “I don’t understand what the client means by this. It does not make sense!”

In the early days, I rarely took advantage of the normal questions process set out in Public Sector bids. I was worried that in some way it might weaken our win chances. I still kept on losing bids. I started reading the questions sent by other competitors to the client which the client circulated with its responses. Even though many of the answers were of the type “It is up to the proposer to make its own decisions before submission”, I started to understand how some other competitors were approaching their proposals. I could get an idea of what they were doing. But they were still winning.

My next step was to rethink my entire approach to the questioning process. Perhaps it was a good idea to ask the questions my SMEs needed answers to, after all. That could improve the quality of our proposed solution. However, how could I do this without giving away what we were doing?

Burying the question that matters

Step one was to overcome this problem. The answer seemed to be to bury the question we really needed to have answered. We could embed it in a lot of questions for which we really did not care about the answer. This way, the other competitors would not be able to work out which was the question which was important to us. The idea was to ask several questions designed to hide our intentions from the competition. The obvious next step was then to ask questions deliberately designed to mislead the other competitors.

Step two was the cunning plan to get the competition to waste bid effort in trying to find out what we were doing. We could ask a question of the client which seemed to be legitimate. However, it would be outside of what might be expected. It was designed to get the “It is up to the proposer to make its own decisions” type of response from the client. However, all our competitors would be worried they had missed something. They would then take people from their pool of resources to research what we were up to. Not being able to find anything would likely get the unfortunate researcher told to go back and do it again, as they must have missed it.

Eight uses for the formal questions process

Now on a roll, the team and I brainstormed how we could exploit the formal questions process to get a competitive advantage. This is what we came up with:

• Ask questions to find missing information or to clarify what has been said in the ITT documents. Consider doing this covertly by asking similar questions about other points in the ITT.
• Demonstrate your credibility. Ask a question which will impress the other competitors with your knowledge and insight. Woo the client at the same time.
• Mislead your competitors. Make them waste bid resources chasing red herrings.
• Test variant bids, and mind the timing. You can try out a radical idea to gauge its acceptability, but don’t do this too soon. If the client likes it, your competitors will try to modify their solutions too.
• Identify your competitors. Sometimes it is obvious who is asking the question from the question asked. Don’t let them identify you.
• Uncover your competitors’ strategies. If you can work out whether your competitors are going for, say, the lowest price or the best quality, you can tune your bid to counter this.
• Expand the specification. If you ask a question about how valuable an additional feature you can offer (which you know your competition cannot match) and you get a positive response, you have widened the evaluation criteria to your advantage.
• Delay the process. Dangerous if you find a way to do this and the client does not receive a benefit afterwards.

The Argentinian ISP

I remember asking a question of the client in a Facilities Management bid shortly after this. It was along the lines of “Would the client have any objection if we were to use an ISP based in Argentina?” We had no intention of doing this. However, the client duly sent the question and the “make up your own mind” answer to everyone. I found out afterwards that at least one of the competitors had wasted several days trying to see what the advantage we had uncovered actually was, before giving up.

Did all this make a difference? I think so, but I cannot be sure. What I do know is that our win rate went up in later bids. I now believe that asking clarifying questions before submitting your proposal is not a sign of weakness. It is a strategic move that should significantly increase your win rate.

If you would like to talk through how to use the questions process on a live bid, please call Sixfold on 01227 860375 for a no-obligation chat.

Andy and Peter were asked to take part in a panel discussion on this topic for APMG (the examination board for APMP Certification). For those of you that are interested, or know of anyone interested in starting out on a career in bidding, here is a link to Episode 226 – Level Up your Career – How to Become a bid and Proposal Professional in 2024 (Part 1)

Episode 226 – Level Up your Career – How to Become a bid and Proposal Professional in 2024 part 1.

If you are involved in the decision of how to structure your multi-organisational team for a strategic bid e.g. as a prime, sub-contract, consortium etc., you need to watch out.  Recent court cases have shown “Here may be Dragons” for the less well informed! Bevan Brittan (a Procurement Law specialist) has helpfully summarised two recent court decisions which may alter your view on how to proceed.  It advises that although there are several ways in which you may team to bid for a Public Sector opportunity, the choice of how to structure your bidding entity may come back to bite you at the end of the process.

In esssence if you are a sub-contractor, you will not have the right to challenge the outcome of a dodgy procurement.  If you create a Special Purpose Vehicle to bid, you will then be limited in the types of losses you can claim.  These cases suggest that if you expect to put a lot of work into a bid and want to retain the power to challenge, you need to be the prime or in a consortium.

The full article is at https://www.bevanbrittan.com/insights/articles/2024/lessons-for-bidders-in-public-procurement-sub-contracting-and-joint-ventures/.  I have tried to summarise it in these two paragraphs to help you get the gist, but I recommend you read it if the topic is of interest to you.

Happy bidding!!

Back to Foreword

Public sector contracts are a lucrative business. You may not win many at first but this will change with experience in leveraging the systems and processes to gain competitive advantage. More doors will open as you become known.

For over 20 years we have helped people bid into the public sector but it is the most frustrating (and often non-intuitive) area of bidding to work in with strict and well-defined rules. Both procurement and bidders work hard to get around these rules and if they do, their competitors try to find out how and take them to court for doing so. If the court finds no wrongdoing, everyone builds their own workaround to circumvent the rules in future bids.

Then procurement teams change the requirements. Bids should NOT be all about providing quality goods and services the public sector needs; they must support the latest ecology, quality and social engineering agendas which make the buying department (or local politician) look good (e.g. eye-catching support for disadvantaged communities, numbers of wildlife rehoused, etc).

So you refocus your business strategy to keep up and face another challenging hurdle – word limited responses to heavily worded questions. The responses in a recent multi-million pound public sector bid were limited to 600 words (difficult but manageable) – but several questions were 300 words and one was 400! At least all bidders had to contend with the same restrictions.

From my experience, the biggest and most successful public sector bidders have dedicated public sector sales teams, with bidding support focused on these types of bids. They understand the many nuances of competing in this field; many have their own well developed bidding tools and processes. They choose from a selection of strategies developed to best meet the latest requirement. Interestingly, the majority seem to value APMP accreditation, even if they do not specify it when they are recruiting or use the APMP methodology internally.

But some provide bid support as a central resource (not sales-integrated). This can be a problem if bean-counters in some multinational HQ decide costs are too high and cuts are needed. They see bids as just another project, and assume the Project Managers already in place will be able to run their bids with support from SMEs in the business. No need for overpriced bid managers/teams!

In our business, we love it when this happens. The client’s bid performance crashes and we are asked to help put it right. We establish a public sector bid team inside the sales function, fully integrating its activities into the communication plan for each qualified opportunity.

So what’s my advice to a company wanting to get into winning public sector contracts? Entry barriers are significant and going after public sector contracts is not a business decision to be taken lightly.

For small contracts, you may get the impression the ‘playing field’ is not level and buyers’ personal agendas are followed at the expense of fair competition. Legal redress for any procurement or bidding shenanigans is unlikely; it’s just too expensive (though the threat of going to court can sometimes sort an issue). Your best protection is to strictly follow the precise rules, requirements and constraints of the ITT. Do not embellish the responses or add in text which is not absolutely relevant to the exam questions set. Only address what the procurement team ask and show you are meeting their needs, not selling what you have. They will be unable to drop you from the competition as a result of a minor non-compliance.

For big contracts, following the rules is not enough. You have to ‘game’ the entire system or you will be wiped out by a competitor. Of course, you need a sound, credible, adequately described solution to remain in the competition – though this is probably not where the final decision will be based.

Someone in your team will need to review the reporting requirements to uncover biases or weaknesses. Start with the price reporting template and create a pricing and solution design strategy that will exploit any weaknesses (e.g. when you know the activities or services to be priced against will be different from what is actually required). Find the people in your organisation who are good at this type of analysis, put them to work and give them a pay rise – it will be worth it!

Next, work out how every section of your response addresses each point in the scoring system, dealing directly with the points which will generate maximum marks. The scoring system may contain vague and unquantifiable tests, e.g. “excellent levels of proof” or “delivers the highest confidence”, so play these words back to the evaluators in the leading and final words of your response.

Finally, let it be known that you will not accept any impropriety in the competition. Make it clear that you will robustly challenge any selection decision which is not entirely justified.

My two top recommendations for all contracts are:

1. Critically review and score the written response from the evaluator’s perspective prior to submission. Try to understand their approach to scoring your work and the rules they must follow. This will provide a benchmark for investigation if your internal score is very different from the evaluator’s.
2. Do NOT use AI to generate text. AI is limited, it cannot innovate and is fairly easy to spot. The client wants innovation and your brain is the best tool for the job.

Go on, have a go! You may be one contract away from a brand new sportscar and a holiday home in Tenerife.

This article was written by Andy Haigh .

Andy is an expert in bidding and tendering, specialising in competitive formal bids into EU Public Sector organisations. He is an authority on EU procurement legislation and can bring all these capabilities together to initiate and drive major complex bids through to a successful completion.

Back to Foreword

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Reusing High Scoring Bid Content

You have to get a bid in against a looming deadline.  Four high-scoring questions are covering Social Value.  This is an area in which your company excels.  Your boss gives you some responses to a previous bid which the evaluators scored very highly.  “Easy-peasy.” she says, “Just use these and put together the responses.”.

This is a real situation which I ran into on a client’s recent bid.  The bid was strategically important.  Timescales and resources were tight.  I was the solution to the client’s problem!

I had a look at the “Good” responses.  They were all well written and had a good balance of solution and assurance.

The “How” question responses were laid out with clear descriptions of the steps in the proposed process and the associated timelines.  The individuals responsible, the metrics, reporting processes and an outline of how things would be put right if they go wrong, were all included.  There were several references in each part of the response labelling where the business had done this before.  Testimonials supported and the successes they claimed.  A one-page, “feel good” case study completed the response.  No wonder the evaluators liked them!

However, then reality kicked in.  Each of these “Good” responses were 12 pages long.  However, the page limit in my bid was 4 pages per question.  When I broke down the question elements in each of my bid’s requirements, I discovered that I had 28 to 30 specific points in each question I must address!  That is about 7 elements per page.  One short paragraph per point.  In each requirement, several of these points were of the form “How will you …”.  My list of “How” elements now looked uncomfortably long.

The next problem was that the specific questions asked in the previous bid’s Invitation to Tender document were not the same as in my bid.  They were similar in that they covered the same main topic areas.  However, many of the question elements were new or different.  What “in Heck’s name” should I do now?  A lie down in a darkened room beckoned.

So, here comes the roll of the dice.  I think I had three options.  In this situation and if I had ample time, I would choose the Good solution:

1. Lay out each of the individual and specific points which needed a response, in the order of the client’s question, in table form.
2. Using the client’s question structure as main headings, create a sensible heading structure for the response from the tabled points.  This needs to be worked to fit the allowable pages when the heading structure is fully populated.  Better still, allocate space or word counts to each heading.  This will make it even easier when you are writing.
3. Carefully go through the “Good” responses and extract the text that best fits against each point in the table.  Add this to the table against the particular point.  An exact fit against the question is not needed, only that the specific point in the new question is reasonably well covered.
4. Start writing against the specific topic in the heading using the “Good” response text as guidance (or lift it directly if it fits).  Rigorously exclude any word, phrase or sentence which does not directly address the specific description in the heading.  Then, revise the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.
5. Either write the response text missing from the “Good” response yourself or (better still) find an appropriate expert to write it.  Again, rigorously exclude any word, phrase or sentence which does not directly answer the specific description in the heading.  Keep revising the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.
6. When the response is complete, leave it for 24 hours and then read it through again.  If it is still too long, consider deleting some specific responses (and risk ignoring a client’s question element).  Choose bits of the response which will have the least impact upon the overall solution you are proposing.  Keep revising the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.

Of course, this all takes time.  If time is tight, you may just want to carefully read the “Good” response, create a heading structure from your client’s question and then begin writing.  Your recent review of a good response should permeate your thinking and your new text?  I would label this as a Bad solution.   Of course, the underlying story and flow which made the “Good” responses so good will be difficult to reproduce.  It, also, relies upon your own expertise in the subject and your knowledge of the Social Value achievements made by your business.

The Ugly solution is to take the previous work and just cut it down to fit the page limit.  On the basis that the original text scores well and that it covers the main area of the question, it should work?  Plus, this has the advantage that your boss will see you have done what you were told.  You have used the “Good” text.  Another plus is that when the scores come back as very poor, you can avoid much of the personal responsibility for the score.  After all, the boss told you what to do and a previous evaluator scored it very highly!

Which did I use for my bid and did it score highly?  Contact us if you would like the answer!  Either way, we hope the considerations above will help you navigate your own scenario.

Please don’t get me wrong – I do like technology. I enjoy all the things it can do to make our daily lives more interesting. However, in my experience it can get in the way of creating an effective bid!

First of all, I must point out that I am “old school”. In a nutshell, this means that I believe everything that took place before 2000 is much better than anything connected with technology that followed it. “No, no!” you say. “What about internet everywhere and smartphones?” “How about AI and ChatGPT?” My response is that they can all do interesting things. However, they actually get in the way of winning bids!

I accept that simple tools such as word processors and spellcheckers are useful. I no longer own a manual typewriter. However, I think much of the technology which tries to be more clever or tries to encompass the entire bid space is counterproductive. I have several reasons for this. Let me lead with what I think is the most obvious: security.

Security is what underpins many executives’ inability to sleep at night. This is particularly common when they think about the bidding environment. The bid team encompasses a group of individuals who hold the keys to the company’s future. If any competitor gets hold of the information they have, this bid will probably be lost. This will have a direct negative impact upon the company, its individuals and departments. It will affect the business’s market standing and its ability to prosper in the future. Executives tremble at the mere thought.

As a result, “security” is imposed. Productive days are lost in training the team in security awareness. Huge expense is put into physical and computer security systems, all of which involve more training. Nothing can be done quickly; it has all got to follow strict security processes. Then passwords are forgotten, or password change is forced by the system and more time is lost. All this reduces the level of contribution that everyone in the bid team can give. Bid quality is diminished.

In the good old days, we may have had some (appropriately simple) security training. Then we would run the bid from its own room with directly connected computers and printers. We had key information on wall charts. We did not need internet, VPNs, Wi-Fi printers. No one could get into the system without coming into the room. There was no disruptive security. Perhaps this was not perfect. However, we could add someone to the bid team at a moment’s notice. Plus, the bid team could actually talk to each other!

Next is database tools. It is great to be able to see other bid responses which cover the same topic area before we start writing our response to our bid – or is it? In my experience the opportunities to cut and paste large chunks of bid from old to new are infrequent. When it happens, the bid’s focus becomes diluted. It just does not connect to the client so directly as a bid written from scratch. It does not address the specific needs and situation of this new customer. It uses text that was developed to meet a different need. I believe that the best bid responses are written from scratch. They must be focussed entirely on the specific bid and customer requirements at that moment.

So why do organisations spend much time and resources in creating large databases of bid information? These must be maintained and updated. They have to train all users in how to find the information and, if it is up to date, extract it. All this for a second-rate response to be created. If the money and resources had been used to provide more bid writer capacity, to my mind, a better win rate would have been achieved. To reinforce my point, I have known large organisations who have bought such bid database systems. Then they never put them to use! I say, buy a bid writer instead!

Then there are the tools which create a closed computer environment for all the bid writers to work within. They seek to constrain the formatting and layout to a restricted, common style. When the final document is put together, formatting conflicts do not happen. The bid manager can peek at progress in real time and intervene earlier if things are not right.

In my experience, the bid team members do not like this. After all the training on how to use the system, they go away and do what they have always done. Then they cut and paste from their “usual” word processing system into the new one. Third parties are not easily included in the system. In any case, they will generate all their input separately. Once again, all this training and management of the system removes effort from the core issue – creating the bid.

Finally, there are smartphones. These evil and invidious devices are too small to see what a page of bid text really looks like. Bid text generated on a smartphone is always poor quality. However, their main impact is that they divert attention away from the bid. They steal focus with their various “alerts”, to which the owner must respond immediately they occur. Inevitably, the bid suffers.

So, my approach to getting a winning bid is clear. Keep it simple. Let the team use the software tools they are used to, but not by using tiny screens. Dodge (but accept you cannot avoid it all) anything which requires management and training beyond the basic bid processes. Write the response from scratch, directly against the specific question and client. Allow time to integrate different inputs at the end of the bid. Then, review the final bid as a whole. Most of all, weigh all the “advantages” of technology very carefully before you allow any focus to be taken away from the core bid response.

Don’t get me wrong; I love many (but not all) big companies. However, I really hate starting to work with a new one.

In our small business, we seek to provide our clients with a high-end consultancy service. We help them win large public sector bids. We are very good at this. We get a lot of calls from people who have heard of us from our existing clients and want us to assist them too. Our clients get excited when they hear about what we can do for them. Very often, after an initial chat, they want to bring us in. This is when the “fun” starts.

We all know the bid deadline from the outset. However, before we are allowed to do any work for their bid at all, we have to be on-boarded through a supplier registration system. If we are not registered, we cannot get a Purchase Order. Without a Purchase Order, we will not be paid!

I get an email asking me to log on to a website. Here I am faced with, typically, 14 long pages of forms which have to be completed. Some stuff is simple, e.g. company name, company number and address. However, then I get mandatory questions about such things as how many slaves we employ and I must attach my slavery policy document. I need to detail our car sharing policies (we don’t share our car) and how often we measure and report our carbon footprint. Each one of these needs a document with a version history and an update schedule. In some cases, I have had to attach photographs of HMRC website pages as displayed on my screen and provide a scanned copy of my electricity bill.

Once this is done (and, of course, the time to deadline is ticking away) we all wait for the inevitable queries. How is it that the employee register has not been completed (we have no employees) and the company car list is absent (we don’t have any company cars)? After explaining on the phone that we are actually a two person company to a twelve year old accounts person, we are told we will now be registered.

During this time, our Bid Manager sponsor has been trying to get financial approval to bring us in. We have supplied day rates and work estimates. However, the person with financial authority has gone on holiday and no one knows who the temporary replacement actually is. A couple of days pass and our sponsor is having a deadline induced breakdown. After a while someone realises her plight and signs the internal paperwork. Whoopee!

However, we then discover we still cannot start work because we don’t have a Purchase Order number. The financial team has to set this up. They are very busy, so they do everyone a favour by doing this in only a couple of days! Now we are “good to go”. Well, no, we are not!

We need access to several large files concerning the bid and they are all on our client’s SharePoint system. All we need is a login and password. However, according to the very busy IT department, we are an existential threat to the entire security of their worldwide computer systems and data. We have to supply information about our IT systems, our IT policies and sign documents pledging we will commit hara-kiri if we forget our passwords. We are sent a Non-Disclosure Agreement. This says that once we sign it, all our intellectual property will be handed over to their business forever. So, I fill out another series of forms and correct a pile of legal looking documents to the point we can work with them. Then I discover that we must be trained in their IT security and the corporate IT policies before we can see any documents.

We are given a login to the training system and only have to sit through 12 modules of CBT. Each has an examination at the end so you cannot keep pressing “NEXT” whilst doing something else. This takes the best part of a day to get through (not counting the resits after failing the end of module tests). The bid deadline is getting closer. Our bid sponsor is now on intravenous anti-depressants and has an alarmingly high alcohol intake.

Eventually, we get the information we need and can start work. It has taken a week of forms, frustration and fone calls (see the sneaky use of the “f”). We all commit to working evenings and weekends to catch up. In our quiet moments we ruminate on the general lack of understanding within the clients’ business about bid deadlines. Why can they not see the real importance of winning bids to the entire company? We wonder why the IT department has so many hurdles to getting the essential support its business needs. Why can’t all these “experts” design a secure and quick system for connecting contractors and suppliers who are essential for their own future employment? And why can’t a senior person’s commitment by letter or email be sufficient to engage help whilst the other parts of the company go through the administrative systems to catch up later? We have been working for a week and not made any contribution to the bid. Frustration is the polite way of expressing what we and the bid team are feeling.

I think I hate all big companies, after all!

How we dealt with the turmoil

I have not enjoyed the pandemic. Like most people, we adapted to the circumstances we were faced with and tried to carry on.

You may think that I am a bit “sad”, but I get excited by procurement and its challenges. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to spend time looking at the bidding and tendering environment for both sides for many contracts. I spent time with different parts of the Public Sector, who needed to act as both buyers and occasionally sellers. I was able to see what they had to do to buy what they needed. I saw how they dealt with the many bids they had to evaluate. I found out how they would then justify their choice of the winner.

It seemed to me that the different processes used by the buyers and sellers were disconnected. Often, the people writing the tender questions were not the people who would use the products and services. The bid team responding to the tender was made up of hostages from across the business. Mostly, they were technical experts, not employed to write sales text. They were only on the team because they were “available”.

Typically, the bid writers were not writing in response to the client’s needs or questions. Their responses were not presenting what the bid evaluators had to score. In any case, many of the evaluators were not experts. They, too, were only selected as evaluators because they were “available”. To make matters worse, on the supplier side the service delivery team would only become involved after contract signature. Little wonder that Public Sector procurements routinely went wrong! There was a lack of trust from the buyers towards the sellers. They thought the sellers routinely broke (and would break) their promises.

Going into the pandemic brought more incongruities. Buyers and bid teams were all “working from home”. Life was condensed into a screen supported by an occasional “Teams” or telephone call. Working hours became very flexible. All the contributors became isolated. Excuses blaming the pandemic were rife. The entire process became even more poorly joined up.

This physical isolation probably did not change our ability to help our clients improve their bids. Of course, I still get excited about working out how a business can win. This is the fundamental reason that we do what we do. However, the home working reduced our motivation to be engaged.

Instead of trying to improve the connection between buyers and sellers, we were just doing the jobs we were paid to do. The personal rewards of seeing the “lights come on” in the eyes of the people we worked with had gone. Even though we still had the incentive to go beyond the brief, the opportunity to do this was much reduced. I have found that no computer tools can ever give the added value which comes from direct, face-to-face communications.

Nevertheless, in terms of the bid documents, evaluators and decision makers were still relying upon “trust” as a key element of their buying decisions. Here, I am using Rackham’s definition of trust. He said that in a sales environment trust is created from three elements: candour, competence and concern. He pointed out that trust is also linked to the time people spend together. I like this definition as I think it gives us some important pointers about how we should create our tender responses.

If we get on with our buyers, a good interpersonal relationship makes it easy for us to discuss the issues the buyer has. If the buyer perceives us to be frank and open about our ability to help, this creates trust. If the buyer believes we are expert, this creates more trust. Then, if the buyer can see that we really understand the problem and its impact upon his or her business, we become even more trustworthy.

We can try to do all these by writing powerful text and having Zoom calls. However, these communication methods are not nearly as effective as talking face to face. When working remotely, the non-verbal parts of the communications are muted or missing. As the pandemic continued, we found it was more difficult to leverage personal relationships to get the information we needed. Evaluators became dispassionate; this is what we did not want! We wanted to create bias towards our clients and their solution.

So, what do I take away from the last couple of years embracing a new way of conducting business? I discovered that we can be as, if not more, efficient through remote working. However, remote working reduces the overall value of what we can deliver. We can still do the job we are paid to do. Moreover, we can probably do it a bit more efficiently. But many of those intangible benefits, which we would normally get from close, personal working, are lost. For me, working like this is less enjoyable and I am less enthusiastic about getting involved.

We have found that when we work remotely, bouncing around ideas between us does not work nearly as well. It makes it more difficult for us to tease out the ways to get better connections between the buyers and sellers. Innovation is diminished. This reduces bid effectiveness. Most of all, working like this is less fun!

Most of all, the relationship with the client is more difficult. We have had to work much harder to prove our worth. We have had to seek to prove our trustworthiness in every aspect of our written submission because the text has been the only route to do this.

Luckily, the tide now seems to be turning. We are now just starting to return to work in our clients’ offices. We are now planning to hold courses in hotels and conference rooms. We will be working where we are physically alongside the people we are working with. We can look people in the eyes when we make a commitment and be believed. The sparkle is already coming back!

A look at how best to respond to an evaluator’s scrutiny of your bid

As an external reviewer, I am often asked to come in and critique Public Sector bids. This most often occurs during the latter stages of their development. When I look at the draft responses, it is obvious if the bid team has set out with a well organised kick-off meeting. The entire bid will have the feel of a single organisation. It will have a consistent, underlying “why we are best” message.

However, even when this is done, I see good bids score poorly. I run into the same fundamental blunders, which I have set out below.

In essence, when a client chooses its supplier, its evaluation weighs three critical things, paraphrased by me as:

• Have all parts of the question been answered?
• Is the method clearly described?
• Is there enough supporting information added to give us confidence that the proposed approach will actually work for us?

Answering the Question

I try to act as an evaluator. I use a detailed analysis of the question to check if all the question elements have been addressed. I do this by breaking apart every line of the question. I list every combination of the question elements each line contains. I specifically look for the word “and” to make sure I have not missed any possible combination.

For instance, if the question says “describe the management and reporting for the installation and operation of …” I must look for answers to:

• Management during installation
• Management during operation
• Reporting during installation
• Reporting during operation

Unless I can identify all these four elements, the question has not been answered. This method is what I call “deconstruction”.

I remove any nonsensical elements and create a checklist. I examine the scoring system to add any specific points it is looking for to my checklist. Very often, the client has used a numbering format with sub-paragraphs. I replicate this numbering and sub-paragraph numbering in my list. Only then do I read the draft response and check for an answer against every listed item.

The easiest way for any evaluator to find these specific points is if the key words from the question are headings in the bid text. If the client’s exact words from the question are not used in headings, I have to interpret what I see in the text. I will try to match what I read against my deconstruction points. Of course, like the client’s evaluator, I may get it wrong. Often, I am not an expert in the subject covered. If you translate the words the client uses into words you use in your business, I and the evaluator might not understand what you are suggesting. We might have a different interpretation of the meaning. This is a danger to your score.

If the response is not evident to me as a direct answer to the question element (considering I am a non-expert and often, therefore, a very typical evaluator), I mark this element as not answered. This can lower the score significantly.

Describing the Method

The important client questions are often of the style “Please describe how you will deliver …” followed by the name of the service required. Note this is not “Please describe your approach to delivering …”. This is a very different question and can be summarised in brief details and bullet points. The approach question is normally seeking an overview style response, to put the detail of what comes next into context.

I believe that the crux of the response to this type of question hangs on that tiny word “how”. To me, this implies the evaluator must be able to see what you will do in its entirety. It needs full detail. This description is what I call the “method”.

So, for each method I look to see if I can identify a step-by-step process. I will then look at each step to see:

• Who is doing the step?
• Why the step is done (if there are choices)?
• How and when it will be done?
• Who is responsible for its success?
• How it will be measured?
• How it will be reported?
• What happens if it goes wrong?

If I have all the appropriate elements of this list, I am happy the “how” is covered.

A flowchart is a great way to do most of this. But only if it is supported by text describing the process and the milestones. On its own, a flowchart may need interpretation to be understood. Evaluators will not have a lot of time to do this. They will take the easiest view. If there is no text, they will probably mark the answer poorly as it “did not give sufficient information”.

Sometimes I am presented with a process description which has been lifted from a manual or textbook. It will be written in the passive voice, not specific to the project or the client. Plus, it will not specify roles or responsibilities for success. If all I have is this, it will score badly. I need to see a method tailored for this specific contract and the actual client’s needs. The method must be focussed on this client alone. The client must see that you are going to solve its specific problems. It must not feel that you will try to force it to bend its business to meet your ill-fitting process.

Giving Confidence It Will Work

The final element I will look for in the response is where you have shown that this approach has worked before. I need to see it is effective for a similar size and complexity of business as this client.

If this supporting information is to be convincing, it usually needs to include an external reference. This can be any of various sources, e.g. market analysts, awards or, more typically, other clients. If the latter are used, I will look for:

• Name of your reference client and, if not a name the evaluator will know, a description of its business
• Statement of its problem, which must be relevant to the client’s question
• Statement of your company’s solution
• Quantification of the benefits the client received (best) or a statement of success (not so convincing)
• A testimonial

In some cases, it may be that the method description can give this confidence on its own. If it is sufficiently detailed and every step is justified, that might work. However, another customer, similar in nature to the client and who says you are wonderful, is the most convincing.

The Score

With all these elements in place, only then can I reflect upon the scoring guidance and decide on an overall score. If the score is not blatantly clear (and most often it is not) I must use my discretion to mark the score up or mark it down. This will depend on how I feel about the response overall. This feeling will largely be based upon how easy I found it to identify and understand the information I needed to see. These feelings are not as critical to the core score as the areas above. But they will have an impact upon how much I “like” the response.

Part 2: The Warm and Cosy Feeling

How to convince the evaluator your bid is best

I have written about what we, as bid professionals, need to do to influence our prospective Public Sector clients. We have to convince them that we are the very best organisation to undertake their contracts. Creating a standout technical solution to meet the client’s requirements is something our technical experts are best placed to do. However, convincing the client this technical excellence is best for them is an entirely different matter. With the best technical solution in the world, unless the client’s business is convinced it is the best solution for them, the bid will fail.

The client will have set the scoring approach in its ITT documents. The evaluation process is designed to be transparent, replicable and defensible in a court of law. The scoring system normally requires the evaluator to balance several different aspects of the response to each question. Then the evaluator must decide which of several score levels the overall response fits into. The evaluator must weigh and consider each of the tests in the scoring system to do this. A key test is always the level of assurance or confidence the evaluator has in the proposal.

When I act as an evaluator for a proposal review, I look for what seems to me to be a complete technical solution. But then I look to see if the bid is convincing. The approach I take to assess how convincing it is, is in several parts.

The Balance

A convincing bid must have a good and believable technical solution. Then it needs to say why the solution meets the client’s needs. To do both these things effectively, the balance of the word count must be right. There must be a balance between the description of the solution and the information needed to convince the evaluator. If all the text is about the method or solution, you will not be convincing. If most of the text is about how wonderful you are, there will be insufficient detail for the client to understand what you intend to do. Moreover, you will be seen as superficial and arrogant.

I look for how much of the response text is not the technical description. My rule of thumb is that 50% of the words should describe the solution you intend to use and how it will be managed. The other 50% should be all about proving to the evaluator that your method, company and culture is the very best they can get. In practice, the solution often exceeds its 50% allowance. Some overspill will not have much impact. However, the more out of balance it gets, the weaker the final score will be.

Assurance

There is a myriad of ways you can demonstrate to the evaluator that your proposal is the one for them. However, there are many pitfalls you can encounter on the way.

The biggest problem I often see is where there is not a consistent underlying theme across the entire proposal. For instance, in one part of the proposal you may justify your choice of solution on the basis it is the cheapest, but will do the job. Then, if elsewhere in the document you are saying it is more expensive but worth it for all the added benefits it will bring, you will confuse the evaluator. Any confidence will be undermined by this conflict. It is really important that you set out a strategy for the entire bid at the outset and all the writers reflect this in their text.

The next level of assurance comes from justification. Where you have a choice in some element of your solution, you need to show the choices. Then you need to say why you picked one and why this choice will be the best for the client. If this is done with reference to the client’s needs, it is hugely convincing. Plus, it shows you have insight into the client’s business, which is even more convincing.

Finally, I look for supporting information which may include references and examples of where you have successfully completed such an activity previously. It needs to include a description of the methodology used and information about systems and personnel who were involved in the delivery. Most importantly, it needs to show success, preferably with some quantification and a testimonial from that client.

This assurance could include objective analysis from market analysts or awards bodies. In all cases, it needs to be attributable and refer to someone the client believes to be credible.

The Discretionary Score

Evaluators are people and they can exercise a level of discretion over, say, whether a response is worth a 5 or a 6. They will probably make the choice on the basis of how much they like you or your proposal. It is difficult for anyone to challenge a score decision which may be on the margins of two adjacent scores in the marking scheme. So, we must seek to influence the evaluator’s mindset to support us.

To do this, I look for a response which:

• Has a high level of comprehensibility. If it is easy to read and understand, the evaluator will like it more than complex text.
• Follows the order in which the questions were asked so it is easy to find the information and see that the question has been answered. If the evaluator can tick off the checklist in the order on that list, that will make them happy.
• Uses only the terminology used by the client (explaining in its terms anything which uses terminology which might be new to them), which shows empathy, client focus and an understanding of the client’s business.
• Does not contain any irrelevant material to the question. Marketing material of any sort is an absolute no-no (unless specifically asked for). If you waste the evaluator’s time by forcing them to read text which is not relevant to the scoring, this will irritate them.
• Is written so the evaluator thinks its company is the only and most important client for your business. This level of client focus gives a great deal of comfort to the evaluation team that they will get a good service from you after contract award.
• Gives the evaluator text which they can cut and paste into their report as to why your bid should be selected above the competitors. Who do you want to write this precis? You, or some bored evaluator in the client’s team?
• Looks smart (has pictures, diagrams and a well laid out page). Giving an impression of quality always helps.
• Has no spelling or grammatical errors. Once such errors are found, evaluators tend to concentrate less on the answer while they look for the next error. Also, it communicates a slapdash approach which could be replicated into contract delivery.

If you present a proposal which looks good, is easy to read and allows the evaluator to tick off the scoring points in the order he or she has on their sheet, it will score better. Perhaps such things may only make a very small difference to the overall score. However, I have seen many Public Sector bids win or fail because of a less than 1% overall score difference. These have all been in the range where a change in the discretionary score could have had a multi-million-pound impact.

Part 3: Empathy and Understanding

Proving you have the best solution

Just because you have proposed the best solution in the world, it does not follow that the client’s evaluation team will select your bid. It may satisfy every part of the client’s issues perfectly. You can show in the text that you have done it all before. However, you may still be missing that final sprinkle of “magic dust”. What does that sprinkle contain? It is all about showing you can empathise with the client’s business issues and its perspective on its world.

When a business selects a partner to take on some of its critical business functions, it wants to be convinced that its partner will act as it would. Every contract it puts in place will affect its users and clients. It needs to be confident that the partner will see the world as it does and not do anything which may adversely impact its reputation.

When I evaluate a proposal, I check to see if this understanding of the client’s business comes through. Of course, finding the client’s terminology in the response text is a good start. Yet, the demonstration of understanding needs much more than this. It must show some deeper connection between the issue identified by the client as important and your solution.

For every question, it is clear that the issue is important to the client; it has asked a specific question about it. If the client has asked a question, it is because the client needs to get assurance that your solution will deliver what it requires in this area. The client will always have some underlying concern that drives it to create this question. Therefore, I look for something in the proposal which identifies this underlying concern and shows that your business “gets it”.

There are many traps for the proposal team trying to demonstrate this understanding. Repeating or precising the question as the leading part of their answer is a waste of words. It does not demonstrate any understanding. Writing a textbook description of the client’s problem will come across as patronising. This uses even more words. Moreover, the evaluators will get irritated if you tell them what they already know. If you bury your proposal in text expanding the question, they might not even read it properly. You have to find a way to express your understanding of their issues which does not create a barrier.

One way I have found that does this is to use the “so we” test. It takes the form of “You need / must have / are faced with the challenge of [short statement of underlying concern], so we are proposing to / have chosen [short statement of solution].” For example: “We understand that out-of-hours support is critical to your users, so we have enhanced the existing team by …”

By its nature, this approach may use and play back the client’s question. However, it works as a preamble to put the “so we” into context. It justifies the solution choices and demonstrates understanding. It magnifies the power of the solution by directly matching the solution to a client need. If used correctly, it frames the response against its underlying concern. You have not altered your proposal but you have got more magic dust.

An additional benefit is that this approach makes us consider the client first and focus on its issues. It forces us to think about what the client needs and how our approach will be best for it. Instead of selling our solution to the client, we will be discussing how the client’s problems can best be resolved. Evaluators will find this change of focus hugely appealing. As a result, it improves scores.

Of course, this approach needs you to know something about the client and its real needs. If you have no idea about these, you should re-evaluate why you would want to bid at all. Your win chances are much lower if you are up against a competitor who can show it understands the client’s perspective.

Should you, or anyone in your team, need any assistance when you are considering reviewing a Public Sector response, Sixfold would be delighted to help. Please call us for a free chat on 01227 860375.

A few days back I had a question from a senior bid writer in a large company. He had been preparing a response to a technical question for a very large Public Sector contract.

He had prepared a response which was pretty good. It covered all the aspects of the question and had some evidence that the proposed approach would work for the client. However, as part of the company’s first draft review process, the draft had been bounced back to him. A Senior Manager had commented that there was insufficient detail. He wanted the bid writer to create the level of detail that would be developed following contract award. This was supposed to give the client comfort that the company could do what was asked. The bid writer came to me and wanted my reaction.

As there was no word count limit and there was plenty of time to prepare a response, it seemed like a reasonable request. But was it?

The questions in this bid were of a form that I have seen emerging in recent large Public Sector bids. The scoring guidance is given and consists of variations on:

• Met fully (10 marks): all sub-criteria a) to h) above are fully evidenced.
• Met partially (7 marks): 7 or more but fewer than 8 of the sub-criteria a) to h) above are fully evidenced.

There was no guidance on what “fully” and “evidenced” actually meant!

At first sight this would appear to be a cunning plot to allow the evaluator to award any marks they wanted, by just recording they were satisfied (or not) with the “evidence”. However, within Sixfold we see it as our role to remove ambiguity in responding to an ITT. We exist to provide advice that, if followed, could be used to determine the outcome of a challenge in our favour in a court. We need to consider the implications of this change in approach to evaluating our bids.

To return to our original dilemma: does a more detailed technical solution and description meet the “fully evidenced” requirement? I think not.

Interestingly, the marking criteria does not set out to measure the quality of the solution. However, we would be foolish to provide an inadequate description. An evaluator must have confidence that the solution will work for this contract. If that is in doubt, then any evidence may not be considered as relevant. Nevertheless, I can see the grounds for a future court challenge to some award decision on the basis that the scoring criteria were met but with an “inadequate” technical solution.

So, part of the response should be a complete description of the technical solution. The description must provide a “reasonable” level of detail to show all elements of the solution have been weighed and considered (reasonable from the viewpoint of an evaluator). However, detail beyond that point is probably unnecessary and will bore the evaluator. Bored evaluators are likely to skip lumps of text. They may miss information more relevant to your scoring.

At this point we have only laid the groundwork for the “fully evidenced” response. We have not scored a single point within the new scoring system.

The traditional way to provide “evidence” in a bid is to follow a solution description with a statement of where it has been done before and the success that ensued. Even better is to say where we have done it before and to quantify the success. However, when the scoring system only measures “fully evidenced”, the implications are that this will not be adequate to guarantee full marks.

My view is that to guarantee maximum scores, the evidence section of every response must deal with the balance between risks and benefits. Any proposed solution will have many risks. For me, this self-evident truth must be tackled head-on and the risks laid out in the response.

The discussion in the text can be about how these risks were overcome in a contract elsewhere. It can include the history of similar work and the feedback from clients. Then it needs to lay out how this approach will work for this client in this contract. The “huge” benefits for the client can then be set out with the mitigations should the risk not be avoided.

For me, this focus on risks and benefits is much more important than increased levels of solution detail. It can be expected that this will take more pages than the solution description. However, if each risk element of every solution part is adequately covered in this manner, maximum marks would have to be awarded under this scoring scheme.

This approach has the added benefit in that it brings in all the traditional evidence points we usually try to include. It makes them more relevant to the solution and the client. Plus, it provides that all-important “demonstration of understanding” of the client’s environment and its concerns. All this leads to a warm and cosy feeling about our bid in the mind of the evaluator.

Is this easy to do? It is not! My recommendation is to start with the highest scoring questions and plan the response structure well before writing starts. The writers must have a very clear idea of the risks, benefits and justifications for the chosen solution for this part of the bid. Time spent in brainstorming these at the outset is more valuable than writing days. Writing is much easier if the authors know what to write.

Should you ever end up in a court in the unlikely situation of arguing over the adequacy of a score, I expect your case would be much easier to prove if this approach has been followed. If you would like any more details of this approach or if you have been cheated of a contract you should have won through an evaluator mistake, we would love to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to contact Sixfold on 01227 860375 for a no-obligation chat.

If the bid is difficult to understand, the lazy evaluator will simply skip the complicated bits. The government is pressing for greater comprehensibility and has a target of 50 on the Flesch-Kincaid score.

The Flesch-Kincaid reading ease test rates text on a 100-point scale. The levels are shown in the table below:

We consider that we need to create text in a complex bid which targets 50 on this scale. By its nature, a technical bid is complicated and can be hard to understand for the less technical reader. Nevertheless, we cannot assume that the evaluator has the time or inclination to decipher complex sentences. We must make our bids easy to evaluate. If the readability, and thus the comprehensibility, is lower than 45 we will lose evaluation points.

There is an excellent readability checker built into Microsoft Word. You can turn it on by:

• File => Options => Proofing => Show Readability Statistics
• Then, when in the document, Review => Spelling and Grammar

Then you should examine any poorly scoring paragraphs and seek to improve them by:

• Using simpler words
• Shortening sentences
• Using the active voice
• Eliminating nominalisations

Run the Word checker again and keep changing the paragraph until the score is acceptable.

Key notes

• Turn on the readability checker in your word processing program.
• Rework each paragraph to achieve a score of 45 or above.
• Check the readability of the final document before sending it to the evaluator.

As time slips by, I am still learning. In my latest foray into a Public Sector bid I learned that I already knew something. But I had not realised that I knew it! I know this sounds a bit perverse, but please bear with me.

Donald Rumsfeld alluded to this in his 2002 weapons of mass destruction speech. In his famous list, he identified “known knowns”. But he did not lead on to using this information. Just because you know it, it does not mean that you will use it.

In this particular bid we were working on very tightly controlled response text. The client specified a limit of 2,000 characters for each complete and complex answer. This is about one half of this article. The questions were of the type “Demonstrate how you will …” followed by a list of specific items. We were reviewing our client’s drafts against the questions and suggesting changes. Our recommendations were fairly consistent across all the drafts: answer the entire question, give assurance, reduce the sentence length, avoid the use of passive voice, and so on.

Our client’s writers accepted our criticisms, but were flummoxed about how they could do better within the character constraints. So, they issued us the challenge: write us a good example of a response which we can use as a template.

This was going to be easy, wasn’t it? Actually, no, it wasn’t!

An old bid manager mentor of mine once said to me “If you want 20 pages, it will take a couple of days. However, if you want 2 pages, it will take me 20 days!” Trying to distil the most important messages down into a few words is a real challenge. You must have enough room for a complete description. Then you must add all the bits that will prove why your solution is best. This is even more of a challenge if you have the pressure of a bid deadline to meet.

So, we spent some time reflecting on what we had learned over the years. We put the bits together and came up with a template for doing it.

The template

Step 1: State you can do it all, blatantly and succinctly. Do this right up front.

Step 2: Open the next sentences or paragraphs with run-in headings (headings which are part of the text of the paragraph). Use the client’s requirement text (actual words) in these headings, e.g. “We will meet each milestone on time by creating a project office …”. Note, bolding their words will help the evaluators find their scoring points.

Step 3: Describe each consecutive step in the process, in the style “The Project Director will create a plan to …”, “She will check for …”, “If she uncovers a problem, she will …”.

Step 4: Show absolute ownership of the process steps. Check every time “passive voice” is used and turn the sentence around to see if you can make it active. It is no good saying “The plan will be created …”. It is important that the client sees that the right person will be doing the work, e.g. “The Project Director will create a plan to …”. This, also, can save words and characters.

Step 5: Examine every instance of “and” in your text. See if you can replace it with a full stop. (Did you see the “and” had gone from these two sentences?) This saves more words and characters.

Step 6: If you have any words or characters left, select all you can from:

• A benefit the client’s clients will get
• A benefit the client will get
• Where you have done it successfully before
• Where you have won an award for it
• Where your solution has worked really well elsewhere (even if it was not you doing it). You must describe why you believe this is the best solution for this client.
• The choices you had for doing it and the reasons you chose this way for this client
• A testimonial from a very happy and similar client
• Added social value

Step 7: Submit the entire text to a readability checker. Rework it until you get to the point that the “Flesch Reading Ease” score is better than 50. This can be tough if you are writing about a topic which has unavoidable complex terminology. (On its own, that sentence scores 42.5, so you can see the problem.) In such responses, we would accept an overall response score of 45 but never, ever, below 40.

This is still like trying to eat your alarm clock; it is very time consuming! So, the trick is to do it lots of times. Then you will begin to write in this format and style automatically. This is what leads to you creating very short and concise text in a very short time.

In its allegorical form, Old Father Time with his beard and sickle reveals truth. It seems to me that you can learn something and even tell others how to do it. However, it can take time for you to appreciate and actually use that truth.

Of course, I knew all these steps. I have been critically reviewing bids for years. Each point in the template was what I had always tried to do. It was only when faced with the challenge to create an example that I put what I knew into one succinct package. Now I know what I knew. Even better, I learnt from it, used it and I can use it again!

Does our approach work? Our client got an example to use as a template. It covered all the points and met the character count limit. The bid went in on time. The bid manager was happy and we await the outcome.

I hope you found this article easy to read and understand. If you did, this was because I wrote it to achieve this. The statistics are:

• Long sentences – 1.06%, caused by putting an explanation in brackets and lists of items in a sentence. I can live with this.
• Passive voice – 2.13%, mainly from the example of passive voice. However, a small amount of passive voice can make the document easier to read. This level seems about right to me.
• Readability (Flesch score) – 77, which means that even the MD will understand it!

Acknowledgement: I use a tool called VT Writer from VisibleThread to analyse all my text. It provides the readability results and suggestions for improvement. Now you know all my secrets.

Five things that keep going wrong on large public sector bids

We have been involved in many large Public Sector bids, mainly on the bidder side and sometimes on the evaluator side. Worryingly, whether won or lost, the same issues come up in the more complex bids again and again. Here are some of the things we have recently experienced, which have had a large negative impact upon our client’s ability to deliver a high-scoring proposal.

Using a Project Manager to Manage the Bid

Bid Managers are expensive. Also, good ones are hard to find. So why not use a Project Manager instead? After all, a bid is just another sort of project, isn’t it? And if the Project Manager can write parts of the response, we can save even more.

This argument usually leads to a bid which will ultimately fail. The approach may have been successful in some large bids, but we are not aware of any that have.

Of course, the bid is a “project”. It needs many of the best project management disciplines to bring it off successfully. However, getting a complete document (with the best solution) out on time is not nearly enough to win in a Public Sector bid competition. Your proposal must score sufficient points against the scoring system, as well. This is what Project Managers are not so good at doing.

Bid Managers are trained to drive a disparate team of experts to produce complex proposal text. They will get your document out on time. In addition, they will ensure to the best of their ability that the document will win according to the specific rules of the competition. They will sense what the evaluator is looking for to score your bid highly. They will get the bid authors to respond to this. At the same time, like the Project Manager, they will drive the bid team to get its solution design right.

To win, a bid must resonate with the evaluators and their business’s needs. The bid being complete and delivered on time is only a very small part of winning the competition. A Bid Manager is trained to drive the entire process and not just the document creation. Their perspective is vital for success. A Project Manager is just not trained to think this way.

Our recommendation is never to use a Project Manager in a Bid Manager’s role. You cannot prioritise technical or subject matter expertise over bidding ability. If the bid is worth the investment of a bid team, you must have it led by someone who knows how best to drive that team to win and not just get the document out.

Losing the Bid Manager

Using an experienced Bid Manager is critical to achieving success in large Public Sector bids. However, as soon as you dilute the ability of your Bid Manager to manage the bid, your win chance diminishes.

What normally happens is that key members of the bid team are pulled out to deal with “an urgent business problem”. A “client issue” will demand immediate attention. Typically, the Bid Manager may be left with no choice but to step in and cover the loss. He or she must write those missing elements of the bid because no other expert can be made available at short notice.

What happens then is that the Bid Manager’s focus is lost from the key task that he or she must do to make sure the bid is won. As this often happens towards the end of the bid writing stage, the loss of direction at this critical point impacts the quality of the entire bid. The Bid Manager may be able to put together some compelling text, but the quality of the remainder of the bid will be reduced. As the quality of the bid decreases, so do the evaluation scores.

Neither can you use the Bid Manager in a large bid to lead the creation of the solution. Of course, he or she must be involved. However, if you need senior level SME direction, you should create a specific role for that within the team. Protect the Bid Manager’s ability to keep the high level perspective across the entire bid creation.

Our recommendation is never to put the Bid Manager in the situation where they get bogged down in the solution detail. You must protect the priority of the bid and the future of your business first. Never take away the expert resources the Bid Manager needs to complete the solution before that expert’s contribution is complete. You should have a risk strategy in place for the extraordinary and unexpected loss of key contributors. Avoid the mitigation strategy of getting the Bid Manager to cover. After all, you should be trying to assure the life of the entire company. Winning bids is a very good way of doing this.

The Best Solution is Not Enough

In a Public Sector bid, even if you have the best solution on the planet for your customer’s needs, you may not win the contract. You may have described it perfectly from a technical point of view and your solution may be just what the Public Sector customer wants. You may have also provided the lowest price. The customer might even prefer your solution, but still be unable to award you the contract. Why? Because you have not enabled them to score your bid highly enough.

In most large Public Sector procurement competitions, the contract is awarded following a team scoring different elements of the proposals. These scores are moderated and then the evaluators calculate value for money, according to a set of rules. The best value for money score is awarded the contract.

Of course, a good solution and a low price will tend to influence the outcome in your favour. However, we have seen many best solution and lowest price bids fail. Why? Probably, the response has not addressed each and every element that is measured to be scored. Legally, the evaluators are only allowed to interpret what has been written in the bid against the scoring criteria. If you have not signposted the information they need to create a score in your bid response, the evaluator’s interpretation may not be what you expect. If you have not addressed a point, the score could be zero!

We believe that the best way to score highly is to take each of the scoring criteria measures and specifically address them in each question response. This should be a clear part of the response to each question element, in addition to the solution description. Then, you should write out the reasons why your bid should score highly in this specific area, clearly and concisely. By this approach, the evaluator must give you high marks or, at least, a score worthy of your response.

If you do this, how can you lose?

Avoiding Customer Focus

Over the years, we have found that senior management, especially in “technically led” companies, have a big problem with Public Sector bids. They and their team are so excited about what they can do for the client with their services and technology, that they write their entire bid response about how wonderful their solution is. They forget one fundamental point: the client does not care about your company and what you can offer! They are only interested in what you can do to the extent that it impacts upon their project and requirements.

The main thing that the decision makers (and the evaluators) want is to see that you understand their business needs and that you have the best solution to address these. They do not want to pay for all the other “wonderful” stuff you can do and they are not interested in how clever you are.

For any bid, the only things the decision makers are concerned about are the answers to:

• Does this company really understand our business and the environment we must operate in?
• Can we work with them? Will there be any clash of cultures? Can we trust them with our business-critical processes?
• What will the impact upon us be of working with them, in terms of the organisation, oversight and controls we will have to put in place?
• If we select this company as our supplier and it all goes wrong later, will we (I) be held responsible for the choice?

These concerns will probably not be overtly included in the scoring criteria. But they will underpin every part of the evaluation.

Ultimately, the only question to be answered is, “Why should we select this bid against all the others we have received?” If you cannot answer this question very clearly in your response, you do not deserve to win the contract (and most likely, you won’t win it).

To answer the ultimate question, we must focus our entire response on the customer (and not our business and what we can do). Any part of the response which opens with our name or “we”, does not do this. As soon as we are talking about what we can do and how we will do it, we have moved from solving the client’s issues to selling our solution to them. This is not what the evaluators and decision makers want.

Not Balancing the Response

The problem we all have when we get a limit on the number of pages or words in a big bid, is that it is woefully insufficient for the description of the solution. Or so all your technical experts will tell you!

However, in reality, the problem is much greater than this. If you use all the words for the description of the solution alone, you will score very badly in the evaluation. You must use adequate words to show you understand the customer’s key needs, to explain why you chose the approach you did and the benefits to the client. You must add evidence that your solution will work for this customer and give its decision makers assurance that choosing you as a supplier is their best option. Oh, and also you need to describe the solution itself.

We believe that the best way to score points in a Public Sector procurement competition is to start by outlining the customer’s real needs. Once you have shown you understand these, you can explain what you consider the best of a range of potential solutions will be. You can set out why you have chosen the approach which is best for them. Then you can detail your solution to do this, followed by the benefits the customer will get.

Your text should attempt to give assurance that this solution is the very best one for them. It can do this by identifying where the approach has worked before and the benefits it created when it was used. Finally, you should specifically detail the reasons for “why you should choose us over all the other competitors” in this area of the client’s needs. Give this a heading towards the end of the response so it is clear to the evaluators.

Tell the evaluators why they should select you and they can use this text to justify their decision up the line. Otherwise they have to work it out themselves (which they might not be able to do as well as you can).

Our rule of thumb: use 50% of the word or page count for the solution description. Then use 50% to generate a good score against all these remaining scoring criteria points.

Overall

If you compete for a “must win” and large Public Sector contract, you should treat the bid generation process with the respect it deserves. Seeking to shave costs and have the bid team cope with the day job as well as the bid will increase the risk of you not winning. Your business cannot afford to sacrifice the bid investment and the company’s long-term future for short term tactical decisions. Everyone in your business must understand this.

It happens quite often. I get a phone call from a senior member of an organisation who has recently sent off a big bid for a Public Sector opportunity. The core of the message is “They haven’t scored our bid properly. We always get 22 or 23 out of 40 in the quality marks. However, we only got 19 this time. There is a Machiavellian plot within their team to deny us this opportunity!”

Even from this short conversation the astute bid professional will get everything that this implies, without needing many more details.

Firstly, the organisation is probably quite competent in its ability to deliver the services and products required. They have lodged many similar bids and won some of them. Indeed, they have enough win/loss results to be able to calculate their average quality marks.

Next, with less than top quality marks expected, they have created a proposal to win on price. This implies that they have an organisation which has low profit margins and a culture which supports this.

It follows that their bid response will have been heavy on “technical” detail. It will fill the pages of the bid with process descriptions, roles, responsibilities and specifications. There will be a lack of (and often a complete absence of) all the stuff that gives the evaluator confidence that this bidding organisation is the best for the job.

There will be no references and no proof points in the text. There will be no indication that the bidder understands the real issues the prospective client faces. Overall, there will be nothing that tells the client “we have the best solution and it is best for you because …”! It will be up to the evaluator to work this out – if they can be bothered.

Finally, it shows that the bid team had not actually read the scoring system description in the ITT. If they had they would have seen that technical perfection can only ever score medium marks on its own. To score high marks, technical perfection is only the starting point. Within the text the evaluator must also be able to find:

• Some demonstration that the bidder understands the problems
• A justification of the choices the bidder has made
• The benefits to the client that will result from this approach
• Reference to where this solution has worked (successfully) before
• Where this bidder has done it before (in a similar situation) and the result

If the evaluator cannot get assurance on all these points from the written words in the bid, he or she is not allowed to give a higher score.

Underpinning all of this is that the bid will have been all about selling what they had, to the client. It will not be about solving the client’s issues in the best possible way. My test for this is to see if the first word in the first paragraph is the bidder’s company name. If it is, this indicates that the entire bid is not focussed on the client.

Of course, as astute bid professionals, we would never fall into any of these traps. Or would we?

If any of this resonates with you as an issue you may sometimes encounter in your low scoring bids, then please give us a call for a no obligation chat. You never know, something we cover may cause you to win the next bid when, otherwise, you would have lost it! Give us a try on 01227 860375 and win the next bid.

You may not be aware that you have a new resource available to you.

The joys of bid support contracts in lockdown

Sunday

The contract was agreed last week. I get an email from the client giving me my system login details. I am surprised they can get their IT support people working on a weekend, whilst in lockdown. Perhaps it is me who is mad, looking at my emails on a Sunday? However, I file the information away and shut the door of my home office.

Monday

The client’s laptop turns up by courier, with a sheet of instructions. It boots up and I spend a couple of hours working through the various registrations and security checks. The login details do not work, so I phone the assistance number given in the instructions. I get through to someone whose native language is not English. Eventually, I give up trying to talk things through. He links in remotely to my laptop and fixes the problems. I find the information my sponsor wants me to read and spend a few hours going through it. When I have read it all, my dinner has gone cold.

Tuesday

We have an early morning call to get started. It is held by video conference and it feels a bit odd. It had to be early because the client has back-to-back video calls for the rest of the day. I am the only one with video on. I find out later that I was the only one on the call not still in my pyjamas!

I have never started an assignment without visiting the client’s office before. The conversation is all a bit stilted, but we agree what needs to be done.

I start work and try to use the client’s laptop with its 13″ screen and tiny keyboard. I find a pair of magnifying spectacles and try again! After a while of poking various buttons (real and virtual) a message comes up and tells me that I will be locked out if I don’t do a mandatory on-line security course for contractors. This needs the installation of a new program. I download the program. I cannot install it because the security system on the laptop stops me installing anything.

I call the assistance number and get through to the same person I talked to the day before. I think it is the same person because I still cannot understand anything he is saying. Eventually we give up trying to understand each other, he dials in to the laptop and installs the software for me.

The dog is sick on the carpet. I discover from my wife that this is a major life crisis. I am told, clearly, it is my dog (not ours) and the carpet will be ruined for ever! Moreover, it is patently clear that I have let the dog eat things – again! I now realise that letting the dog eat things is a heinous crime.

One washed and dried carpet later, I am back to the laptop. I normally work with an arrangement of 4 screens with a 30″ screen in the middle. I find this is the best way to work on several complex documents at the same time. So, I decide to connect my 30″ screen to the laptop. It is a simple HDMI plug.

An hour later I call my assistance number and the person connects to the laptop and gets it working again (with my big screen attached). I still don’t understand a word of what he says.

I start the security course and find it is 17 modules, each of which lasts 6 to 9 minutes. Then there is a test at the end. If you don’t pass the test, the system will not let you in.

The security course does not recognise my login, so I start the “Forgotten Password” routine. An hour later I am locked out of everything. My assistance man dials into my laptop and unlocks it. It is after 18:00 so I finish for the day.

Wednesday

I start the security course. I turn the sound off and let the videos run. When I come back to look at the screen again, it has stopped. It is waiting for me to complete a mini test of my understanding of the module to that point.

I start the course again. All is going well and I now know some more about IT security. Then my phone rings. I miss part of a module. When I have finished on the phone I have been logged out. I start the course again.

The dog is sick in the kitchen. I clean up. I start the course again.

The client rings to say that the presentation that I was supposed to give this afternoon has attracted a lot of interest. It now needs to start at 17:00. This is so his boss can dial in from overseas. I say OK and go back to the security course. I have been logged out! I start the course again.

At 16:30 I find I can save where I have got to on the course and I do this. I do some final tweaks on my presentation and join the call at 17:00. Several important attendees have not yet dialled in, so we wait. After 30 mins, once the client’s boss has arrived, I start and have the weird situation of presenting to a camera and getting virtually no feedback. I miss the eye contact with my audience, but I soldier on.

After about 45 minutes I stop. I invite discussion and questions. To my surprise, they have been listening. The questions go on and only run out at about 19:45. I am pleased the client seems to be happy with what I have said to the team. However, the dog has the “hump” as he has not had his walk, my wife is not talking to me and my (dried up) dinner is in the microwave.

Thursday

I start the security course again. I take the test at the end of the modules and fail! Most of the questions seem to be about software development. I don’t do software development. I take the test again and scrape a pass. My laptop is now prevented from getting locked. Whoopee!

Friday

We start with a call at 09:00 and then go into a series of virtual meetings. The client’s team are all bright, intelligent people, with whom it is a pleasure to work. We start making progress on the bid strategy and I am feeling chipper about how things will go from now on. I get back from lunch and try to log in. A message comes up: “Your password is out of date. Please follow the change password procedure.” I do this and an hour and a half later (including my call to the assistance number and him connecting to the laptop) I am operational again. During this time, I have joined two calls by phone. However, as most of the conversation was about documents shared on the screen, I could not contribute very much. When I finally join on the laptop, everyone is slowing down for the weekend. Ah well.

So ends my week of work. I have delivered about 10 hours of useful work and spent 53 hours working. I have battled the laptop and won (at least for the time being). I am now a proven expert on software development security processes. I have a weekend to repair damaged marital relationships and walk the dog without letting him eat anything. Perhaps this is how to overcome adversity: just keep going, deal with problems as they occur and try to keep each crisis in proportion.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are in the Public Sector and it is getting towards the end of a difficult week. You get back from lunch to find a note on your desk to ring the boss. She says “We have had an evaluator for one of our tender competitions go sick. We need you to take over the work. The evaluation for the remaining three questions has to be done before you go home today!”.

I expect your reaction would not be one of joy and happiness. For many people, critically reviewing tender responses is not a great way for them to use their time. Indeed, some would prefer to roll naked in a nettle bed, rather than to be evaluating tenders!

So, now imagine that in your review you pick up one tender which has all the information laid out in the order you have in your check sheet. As you go through, you can pick up the evidence you need without having to dig through a pile of superlatives and unwanted “bonus” features. In addition, you don’t need a copy of a dictionary beside you to work out what the obscure words mean, like the complicated words that come up in the other bids. You know that they have only been added to make the writer sound intelligent. You want to ignore them, but you have a legal duty to understand them!

Of course, you will only score the tender on the information which is presented. All the content must be tested against the scoring criteria. However, this response is on the cusp of a 4 or a 5. Which do you give? It is likely that your emotional response to the ease of assessment will cut in and you will go for the higher mark.

Imagine, now, that you are a bid author. You enjoy your job and you are excited about what you have to offer. Indeed, you cannot wait to write down all the super things which your solution will do for the prospective client. You have a “brilliant and world beating solution, designed by your leading experts in the most innovative technology, which is not only trail-blazing but will be the benchmark for all future instantiations of icon alignment”. Somehow, your good idea for the layout of icons on the screen sounds so much more valuable and important – or does it?

Our job as bid professionals, is to win our bids. It is not to display how clever we are to the evaluation team. Nor is it to market our products and services. It is, only, to make selecting and buying our proposal easy, and easier than the competition. So why do we, so often, put barriers in the way of doing this?

Our suggestion is that the Bid Manager must brief the team to leave their egos at home and make it easy for the evaluator to evaluate. Each response they write should:

• Be ordered in the way the question is asked.
• Follow a heading structure and layout that comes from deconstructing the question, before writing starts.
• Not add any features which are not explicitly asked for.
• Tested for comprehension against the Reading Ease and Grade tools built into the word processor.

Then, when you get their first draft back, you should run the Microsoft Word built in Readability Statistics. The Reading Ease score should be above 50. If it is not, send the draft back with instructions to make it easier to understand. And, just for fun, why not try the test on your last Executive Summary?

What we all can learn from the experience

Provision of an Expert Witness

Recently, one of Sixfold’s directors, Peter Lobl, appeared as an expert witness in a ground-breaking procurement case in the High Court in London.  The case was filed by an aggrieved bidder against the Ministry of Defence claiming an erroneous bid evaluation result.  The judgement established a precedent for the information which must be provided about the evaluation process in bid instructions.  In addition, there were some salutary lessons for all bidders which emerged, which are summarised below.

Our Client, MLS was delighted with the result.  The MLS General Counsel and legal strategist, Dr Anton Micallef, said “MLS has been awarded the contract by the court, a remarkable achievement and the result of great team work.  Peter’s contribution was considerable and key to the success of our efforts.”

The Background

In November 2017, MLS filed a claim to seek remedies against the MoD over its mishandling of the evaluation of their bid for providing and procuring port and support services to British naval vessels worldwide.  The procurement value was expected to exceed £400m.  As the incumbent provider, MLS had enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Royal Navy, for whom they had provided these services over the previous decade.

In the re-compete of their contract, the MoD rejected MLS’s bid even though it was ranked first, had the best quality score and the lowest price in the competition.  They did this because they evaluated one Pass/Fail sub-question as a Fail.  However, the MOD had not disclosed to bidders in their instructions that a Fail score meant instant elimination or that a single Fail score would result in rejection of the entire bid.

The Judgement

MLS sought Expert Witness evidence to support its case that this was a hidden criterion and Sixfold was selected to act in this role.  We had a ringside seat as MLS challenged the rejection decision in the High Court and the High Court set aside the award to the incumbent bidder and declared that the MoD could lawfully award the contract to MLS. The court declined to make a mandatory order compelling the award, leaving the final decision with the Department.  This was one of very few standstill challenges in which the court set aside the award itself, rather than confining the claimant to damages.

The Insights

Firstly, we have seen a clarification for the 30-day time limit to bring a challenge to a procurement issue.  The MoD argued that MLS’s challenge was out of time because the error was made in the ITT and not challenged within 30 days of the time of its release.  The judge ruled that the decision to reject MLS’s tender was the actual start of the time limit period and not the date the ITT was published.  So, we need to carefully assess the time a court would accept we could have reasonably known about a problem before assuming a challenge is out of time.

Secondly, we have learned that any error or ambiguity can be challenged, however insignificant it may appear at first sight.  If it is possible that a requirement could be interpreted ambiguously by tenderers then we could have a case.  So, we need to be prepared to “nit-pick” and forensically examine the details if a decision looks “wrong”.

Finally, we should remember the very wide scope available to challenge any procurement decision.  We have seen that the mere threat of legal proceedings can bring more detailed disclosure and changes to process.  We have even experienced contract awards being revoked, based on the threat of a formal challenge.  We need to look out for any instances of unfairness, e.g. non-transparency, unequal treatment, discriminatory criteria, hidden criteria and manifest errors.  If we find them, then we need to act quickly.

Of course, if you are not certain of the way forward, then please ask Sixfold to come and chat to you about what you need to look for.  The findings will be your bullets should you wish to fire them at an Authority who has not used the procurement processes correctly

Moreover, if you feel your team could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the ammunition for challenge, you might like to meet our Expert Witness.  Sixfold has a one-hour team briefing on this topic, looking at the potential for challenge from the bidder’s viewpoint.  Please give us a call on 01227 860375 if you think this would be of value.

For many years bidding for a Public Sector contract meant days of printing, collating and binding multiple copies of proposals. For large bids we frequently needed vans to deliver the volume of bid documents required for us to be compliant.

The 2014 European Public Procurement Directive emphasised the use of electronic communication to improve efficiency. Since then, we have seen an increasing use of portals and emails to communicate our bid documents. On 18th October 2018, a number of additional regulations came into force, which apply to all contracting authorities subject to the EU procurement rules.

Now all communication or information exchange (and most importantly, the submission of tenders) must be by electronic means. The regulations require that the communication systems must be easily accessible and non-discriminatory. However, the regulations allow that electronic submission is not required:

• If the nature of the procurement is specialised such that electronic communication would require “specific tools, devices or file formats” that are not generally available or not generally accessible
• If the applications (or viewers) which are required to open a file containing a tender document are not widely available or are under a specific proprietary licence and cannot be made available to the contracting authority
• If the use of electronic communication would require specialised office equipment which would not be generally available to the contracting authority
• If the tender submission requires a scale model
• Where there has been a breach in the security system of the authority
• Where the information is of such a high level of sensitivity that its security cannot be assured by use of electronic communication

In addition, there is no requirement for tenderers to submit supporting documentation when the contracting authority is already in possession of the documentation. We now only need to identify the documentation held. The idea is that this should reduce the requirement to send the same documents multiple times.

So, does this mean that the use of paper in procurement competitions will finally stop? Unfortunately, I think not. I know that having some printed pages helps evaluators with their task. I have not yet come across a bid where the document (or key parts of the document) are not printed out at some point, so that the evaluators can scribble on them.

An issue for tenderers is that relying upon previously provided information has its disadvantages. Nothing irritates an evaluator more than having to stop the evaluation to hunt down information which he or she cannot easily find.

What this means for us is that, if electronic submission will create problems for us in submitting our bid, we should look at the requirements and consider objecting on the grounds of discrimination. If we can find an exception which applies, we should pursue it.

If we are going to submit an electronic bid, we must still examine what the document will look like in both the electronic and printed form. We must give the evaluator the impression we are a high-quality organisation and some of that impression comes from the “look and feel” of the bid. Finally, if we are going to rely upon previously supplied information, then we must clearly identify the information and give details of when it was supplied. In addition, we should give a precis of the information to help the evaluator. We want them to avoid having to go and find the source documents, if possible.

Overall, I believe that these mandatory changes are a good thing and they will help us all. We can now push back on any requirement for printed documents or duplicate copies, if they arise. However, our task is still to give the evaluator the feeling that we are the best organisation to contract with. The bid remains a crucial part of achieving this. So always think “Evaluator” when choosing the options.

If you run into any issues with any of the points raised in this article, please do call us on 01227 860375 for a no-obligation chat.

Being a Bid professional can be demoralising. It can feel like the sales team gets all the credit and the bid team’s contribution is overlooked or not even acknowledged. If we are going to evolve our profession, we need to raise our status and get real recognition of the contribution we bring.

When we have asked the bid professionals we work with about status and recognition, we come up with a fairly consistent set of issues. We hear that bid teams are:

• Given no or only late visibility of pending ITTs
• Not provided with any real insight of client issues and goals at the initiation of the bid process (and sometimes not at all)
• Not provided with a clear win strategy to work with and often have to work it out themselves
• Required to run with poorly qualified opportunities which result in poor win rates (the bid team’s fault!)
• Denied bringing together the full team for an effective bid kick-off because of “competing priorities”
• Treated as enemies when they suggest qualifying out of a bid

As a result, bids are sent out which are much less effective than they could be. Win rates suffer and some of the blame rubs off on us.

We don’t have a magic wand to solve these problems. However, we have one idea which we think will help and which will increase the understanding of the value bid professionals can bring.

Our solution is to seek to work more closely with the sales team and, in particular, offer a service to facilitate the early opportunity planning activity. Once identified, any important opportunity needs a brainstorming session to work out how best to capture it. If we facilitate this session, the sales team can focus on participating and not having to manage the session. This will lead to a better plan. Additionally, it will lead to more effective and more consistent sales planning across the organisation.

We should look to propose an agenda for the meeting to include:

• Client assessment (issues, goals, hot buttons, drivers)
• Our value to the Client and our discriminators if we can identify them
• Competitive Assessment
• SWOT for the opportunity
• Our value proposition
• Our win strategy and how we can influence the ITT
• Action Plan

If we can help with the sales and opportunity planning process we will, automatically, understand more about the client and the win strategy. We will get early sight of potential bids. Additionally, we can influence the agenda to ensure that from an early stage the sales team is collecting the information we will need. We can encourage them to the harder questions such as our standing in the account. From this beginning, it should evolve into much better integration of the bid team into the sales planning processes.

Overall, we all win. What’s there not to like?

A few organisations are starting to pick up that on 25th May 2018, the new Data Protection Legislation (the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), comes into force.  It is targeted at improving privacy and preventing data breaches.  It is based upon EU legislation.  However, we expect that it will continue after Brexit, essential unaltered.  The Public Sector is already being pushed into altering all existing and new contracts, to bring them into alignment with this legislation.

Under the new regulations, companies must keep a complete record of how and when any individual gives consent to store and use their personal data.  Individuals, also, have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.  When somebody does withdraw consent, their details must be completely, permanently and swiftly erased, and not just deleted from a mailing list.  In other words, the legislation gives individuals the right to be forgotten.  There is some good guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf

The impact upon bidding organisations seeking both commercial and Public Sector contracts may be substantial.  It is routine for us to include CVs and references in bids.  We often name individual personnel to give credibility to their achievements or pass personal telephone numbers as emergency contact routes.  From May, each business will need to record the consent to those involved and have an accurate system of managing withdrawn consent.  It means we have to know where every instance of the personal data is lodged and to be able to amend it quickly.  For instance, can you be sure of where every one of your old bids are located?

When the legislation kicks in, companies will be required to provide regular data audits for EU authorities to prove they are compliant.  This means someone will have to go through every software application and database and record details such as the exact type of data they contain – whether it be names and addresses, or more personal information like achievements.  They will also have to identify who has access to it.

We expect that any organisation looking to comply with the new Data Protection legislation will incur costs in doing so, especially if it needs new systems or processes to be put in place.  The Public Sector view is that such costs are attributable to conducting business and not just supplying the Public Sector.  As a result, it expects all suppliers to manage their own costs in relation to compliance.  This means the overall costs of doing business with formal proposals is about to go up.

As bid professionals, we need to prepare for the changes now.  We must maintain a register of the personal data we use, when it was agreed to be used and where it is included in all our bids.  We need to let everyone who has personal data used in our work know where and the reasons for its use.  Plus, we have to tell them how they can withdraw their consent and how they can be sure that this has been achieved.

We think that this is a good time to include a preamble in every bid which contains personal details.  Like the statement that identifies that a document contains sensitive information which needs to be kept confidential, we now need to add something like:

“This document contains personal information provided with the consent of the individuals involved.  This information is highlighted on pages 7 to 9 and in Annex B.  This information is provided for the sole purpose of fair evaluation of our proposal and may not be copied or passed on to others for any purpose beyond the evaluation in this competition.  The individuals may withdraw their consent for the use of this information at any time and you must account for all copies of this information so it can be recovered or destroyed, if circumstances require.  Should you be unable to comply with this requirement, you must return this document and all copies to us immediately for all personal data to be redacted.”  We must then highlight the information accordingly.

How we might deal with such information which has been distributed in past proposals, is uncertain.  The GDPR covers the information in them too.  No doubt, we will have some court cases in the future which will set the direction.  In the meantime, your organisation may have a nominated Data Protection Officer and now is a very good time to talk through the issues with them.

Here you are, striving away day after day dealing with a relentless stream of complex and demanding bids.  There have been countless evenings and nights when you have been working alone in the office to meet a bid deadline.  And then, when you have had company, it was because it was “all hands to the deck” to overcome the crisis (not caused by you) of a strategically important bid not being on track to be completed on time.  When the bid was won, little of the credit was given to you as it was the sales team’s success.  Your reward was stale coffee, cold pizza and yet another bid to complete.

There is an antidote available for this situation.  You will probably be aware of the Bid Solutions Salary surveys.  They show that bid professionals who have achieved professional recognition through formally recognised programs earn significantly more than their unaccredited peers who are doing the same job.

The reasons for this are multifaceted; selection of applicants with an externally tested and recognised qualification reduces the hiring risk for a business and the hiring decision maker.  A “standard” methodology and basis upon which people develop their bids, leads to less ambiguity and lower error rates in the activities which need to come together when a bid is developed.  However, probably most importantly, companies pay more for people who contribute more.  People who have got the qualifications have demonstrated their ability to contribute and higher contribution leads to higher reward.

If this is not enough to convince you to put aside a chunk of time to get your APMP Foundation examination under your belt (or to progress to the next level), we have an even more compelling argument.  We recently ran a short survey of the people who had been through our Foundation training courses.  We wanted to know what impact the training, and its preparation which they had had to do, had made to their daily working life.  The results were instructive.

Over a quarter of our alumni responded.  What they reported was highly encouraging and when we analysed the detail we found:

• 94% reported that they had found the information they picked up on the Foundation course assisted them in the way they did their job.
• 54% reported that gaining the qualification helped boost their status within their organisation.

and

• 13% reported that the qualification had directly helped them earn a promotion or (for freelancers) win a new contract.

So next time you are feeling overworked and undervalued, you might want to reflect upon how your status might be affected by gaining a suitable level of professional recognition.  And, if you already have recognition but it is not affecting the way you are treated in your current job, just remember that it will be so much easier to move somewhere else where your talents will be more appreciated (and paid for!).  Otherwise, there is still that cold pizza to look forward to?

Preparing for the aftermath

Your “must win” bid is submitted on time. It has been branded a success at your independent Final Document Review. You have sent the team home for a well-earned rest and cleared the remnants of stale pizza and cold coffee from your war room. You can take the next day or so to relax a bit, prepare for the next one, and you can let the bid team return to their day jobs. Phew!

You are in your office chatting with the Operations Director about another opportunity when one of the sales team puts their head around the door: “I have had a couple of clarification questions from the client. Shall I send them to you?” When they arrive in your inbox, you and the Operations Director have a quick look.

The questions seem fairly straightforward and together, you pop a few words in an email and send it off to the client. “Now, what was it that we were chatting about before?”

Then later, you hear you have lost the bid!

Why does this happen? Well, one reason may be that you did not see the clarification request for the opportunity it presented. You treated it with less care and attention than the other text in your bid. But in fact, it turned out that this was the most important text of the bid! Another reason could be that you thought it was all done and dusted when the bid had been put in and you no longer needed the full team to support you. It was not!

We have put together a few pointers about how the savvy bid leader can achieve bid utopia in a Public-Sector bidding environment and not fall foul of such traps as these.

Dealing with Clarifications

When a Public-Sector client asks a clarification question it means that it cannot decide what your evaluation score under that question should be. It signifies that from your entire bid, these are the areas that could still make a difference. Your answer will be the decider. It may even affect the scores in other areas of your bid, as well!

Clarification questions are clear signposts from the client about those areas they are seeking to make choices in. They are also your opportunity for an additional communication with the evaluators, which may have a wider and major impact upon your bid win chances. So, your bid process needs to plan for these as opportunities to be exploited.

We believe that clarification questions should be treated with the utmost seriousness. Indeed, we have seen two clients lose their bid as a result of a lacklustre response when asked for more information like this. So, when a clarification question arrives we think you should reassemble the core bid team with some urgency. Then, as a team, you should examine the questions in detail, relate them to the specific wording in your bid and see if you can uncover the underlying reason why the question was asked in the manner it was put.

Next, you should test your response against any competitive intelligence you have. You must “ghost” what you think your competition may be promoting in your answer, to tilt the balance in your favour. Finally, for any complex or lengthy response, you should precis the response as a short executive summary and include this as a preamble to the answer. Make it easy for the evaluators to show their bosses that you should be awarded the maximum marks.

We do not believe any of this can be done most effectively by the Bid Manager and a salesperson alone. It needs the same attention as the original bid strategy planning. It should be the result of a brainstorm meeting with everyone involved in that area of the bid. Get them all back together and treat the exercise with the same attention as you gave the original bid planning decisions.

Setting up the Presentation

Worrying about the presentation whilst firefighting all the other aspects of getting your bid out on time is an unnecessary distraction, isn’t it? So why not leave it to the sales team to do it, the day before the presentation takes place? This is what can happen all too often. However, we think that this lack of attention can seriously impact upon your chances of success.

Winning bidders plan the presentation with the entire bid team as part of the overall bid creation activity. By this method they can have a presentation which complements the bid and doesn’t just repeat it. It harmonises with the core bid concepts and supports the key discriminators.

Moreover, presentations are often scored. Even if they are not, the presentation will be used to justify the evaluators increasing or decreasing your scores in specific areas. Sometimes the client’s team will give you some guidance on what they want you to cover. They are not doing this for the fun of it; they have specific issues with your scores in these areas and they are going to use the presentation to resolve them! In other words, a clarification opportunity.

To get the best results, you must plan the presentation key elements with the entire bid team as the bid is constructed and then get the bid leadership and senior management together once you have the client’s presentation instructions. Oh, and don’t just go through your bid response; they will have read it. Think about what you can express in a presentation that you can’t easily express in a document and weave that in. For example, empathy with the client situation, exuding confidence in delivery, being good people to work with. And, certainly, do not have a section titled “About Us” or similar. They are not interested in the number of worldwide offices you have and you will only irritate them (unless, of course, they have specifically asked for this information).

Finally, the presentation is the very best chance you will get to ghost the competition and their solutions. Build it in!

Leveraging the Success

You have been told that you have won! Hooray! Let’s send (leak) a press release out right now so they will not be able to change their minds. After all, the Alcatel period is a joke! If you do that then what happens next is probably not going to add to your joy!

If you want to seriously irritate Public-Sector authorities, then do something which will not only break their processes but embarrass them, to boot! On the other hand, having a press release which boosts their egos ready to go and then “slipping it in” to them for approval at the right time, may win a friend or two. Of course, you would only do this to get their feedback if you were fortunate enough to win, wouldn’t you?

Preparing the Ground for Challenges

You want to give your bid the best chance of success? Then you must lay the preparations for a challenge right up front. It must be part of your strategy.

This is easiest to achieve when the instructions ask for “innovation” or “added value”. If it is not clear how innovation or added value will be measured and scored, you can define this in your response. Then, if you are not awarded maximum points for a response where you have described one or both, you will have good grounds to challenge the decision on the basis of a “manifest error”.

You could, of course, legitimately ask the Authority to define their marking criteria for these ambiguous terms; but why telegraph your intentions to your competitors, before bid submission?

This is a tricky area, but one full of promise if you start thinking about it at the very beginning.

Negotiating when it is all over

Sometimes there is a small but significant contractual point which is a real issue for your team and which you have, reluctantly, decided to accept to get the contract. When the dust has settled and you are about to sign the contract, you could turn to your Public Sector opposite number and say, “We have been relooking at the insurance level for this and we think it is unaffordable so we need to reduce it before I can sign. This is not going to be a problem, is it?”

Of course, if this is a material change and you stand your ground, the entire competition will have to be re-examined or even restarted. However, if it is not material, the Procurement team will have to balance the aggravation of sorting out their alternatives against accepting your bid with a “minor” and easy change. They may well concede rather than going through the whole procurement exercise again.

We call this “the Nibble” and it needs to be planned as part of the bid strategy. Will it work? Most often, yes. But it is not guaranteed and you need to be prepared to negotiate hard and then capitulate if it looks like you are going to lose.

Beneath it All

Underpinning all these pointers must be, of course, a sound bid with a compliant solution. However, these pointers are the bits that can turn a good win rate into an excellent one, a sound profit into something exceptional. It can take you to that goal we all seek – bid utopia!

If any of this strikes a chord with you and you would like to discuss the points further, or if you are facing clarification questions right now, do give us a call for a chat on 01227 860375. We would be delighted to hear what you are up against and give our feedback.

We have just seen the new guidance on how a procurement decision challenge should be mounted. It will impact upon the way in which we all deal with these difficult situations in the future.

The guidance, published by the Technical and Construction Court, affects most procurement cases. It recognises that claims will be complex and have to be handled very quickly because of the statutory time limitations. It, also, acknowledges that because of the time constraints, claims may have to be launched with items of information missing.

The Court expects:

• Initial exchange of letters between the aggrieved bidder and the Authority.
• The parties to continue to make appropriate and proportionate efforts to resolve the dispute without the need to commence proceedings.
• The claim to be served within 7 days of issue.
• Because the bidders have less information about the scoring than the Authority, the Authority will provide “key decision material” at an early stage. This would include the evaluation documents and the contemporaneous notes made by the evaluators.
• An early Case Management conference where a bidder considers that it has received insufficient information and applies for more.
• Confidential material on both sides to be protected. The Court expects to receive both redacted and full copies of information. It will then decide on what information may be released and under what conditions.
• The winning bidder to be informed (if not party to the challenge) and for them to participate as an “Interested Party”.
• Where an Authority applies for the automatic stay on the contract initiation, the Court expects the timings to be set to allow the challenging party to file evidence showing why the stay must be maintained.

The initial correspondence from the claimant should identify:

• The procurement process being challenged
• The grounds for the claim (both factual and legal)
• Information sought from the authority
• The remedy required
• A request for an extension of the period within which the authority will not enter into the contract
• An appropriate, short time-limit for a response

Then, the authority should:

• Acknowledge receipt of the letter
• Notify the claimant of its solicitor’s details
• Indicate whether the standstill period will be extended and if so, for how long

The authority should then provide any information which the claimant may be entitled to as soon as possible and send a substantive response as soon as practical thereafter.

Throughout all this, the Court expects the parties to act co-operatively and reasonably.

From the viewpoint of the Public-Sector bidder, this Guidance Note reinforces our ability to get the information we need and then to be able to engage with a constructive discussion with the procurement team. If they don’t play ball, then the Court is likely to take a dim view and this will prejudice any case they think they may have.

If you are considering a challenge and you would like an objective view or more information, please do give us a call on 01227 860375.

On the 9th September 2016 the Crown Commercial Service announced that the standard Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) may no longer be used in Public Sector procurement and that it must be replaced with a standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ). It has yet to be adopted in Scotland. However, the SQ must be used immediately by contracting authorities in England and in Wales and Northern Ireland that intend to pursue competitive procurements which are above the EU thresholds and which require pre-selection.

The SQ requires a supplier to self-certify its standing against both the exclusions grounds and the key selection criteria. Then, the Authority is only required to verify the winning supplier’s responses. Nevertheless, it can choose to verify the responses of any suppliers at any stage in the process, if it is concerned that there may be a problem.

The SQ has three parts:

• Part 1 – Information about the supplier
• Part 2 – Exclusion grounds
• Part 3 – Selection criteria

Authorities will not be allowed to change the questions in Parts 1 and 2. They can ask additional, project specific questions which relate to the supplier’s technical and professional ability in Part 3. However, if they want to change the standard Part 3 questions or ask questions beyond this scope, they will only be allowed to do this if they have reported their intentions to the Mystery Shopper Scheme.

The SQ is the latest development in the continuing push to simplify the selection processes and make it easier for SMEs to compete in Public procurements. The questions in the SQ comply with the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) and the CCS has said that Authorities must accept responses provided using the ESPD instead of the SQ, where they are offered.

For the Bid and Proposal professional, this move should make our lives a bit easier. Responses to the entire SQ can be pre-prepared. Then, so long as there is a process for keeping the information up to date, responding to Parts 1 and 2 should be a trivial administrative task.

Similarly, much of Part 3 can be pre-prepared, in the same manner as Parts 1 and 2. However, we will still need to create individual responses for project specific questions and tune the content of the other responses to make sure they show our capability for the project in the best light.

Nevertheless, this change will reduce the load on our bid teams and allow them to concentrate on the important stuff – maximising scores against the questions in the full proposal. All we need to do is create our baseline SQ document and then keep it up to date.

If you need any more information about the SQ and its impact upon the way you respond to Government procurement opportunities, please do give us a call on 01227 860375.

Sixfold’s latest success was with Grosvenor Services where we have both trained the team and then supported the bid manager.  They bid for all lots in a very large Government cleaning contract and have been selected against stiff competition in every one of them!  We just had the win decision yesterday .

Lessons learned from some years of working in the world of Public Sector procurement

After what seems a lifetime in either selling into the Public Sector or advising Public Sector clients on how to get the best from their procurement activities, I thought I had seen it all.  But now and then, something else happens and my “all” expands a bit more.  So what are my latest thoughts on getting that elusive “good” procurement?  Well, here are a few.

It is no secret that the entire Public Sector procurement process is designed to remove unfairness.  It tries to ensure that the supplier with the best overall answer to the needs will get the contract.  It is based upon the people with the problem, documenting their requirements and then making a case for the spend.  If they can convince their organisation, then they will get the budget and the procurement begins.  So far, so good!

However, the success of the procurement exercise depends upon three quite disparate groups agreeing that the eventual choice of supplier is best.

Those With the Problem

There is the group who has the problem.  They know what they want.  Indeed, they are paid for their expertise and their operational knowledge.  They absolutely know what is best for them to deliver the service they are set up to provide.  They are looking for the very best they can get, to be able to do their jobs most effectively and most easily.  They are probably measured on how well their job is performed and excellence in delivery is a key aspiration for them.

Those With the Money

Then you have the group that controls the money.  Of course, they want the best product or service.  However, their view is tempered by the availability of funds and the competing pressures of other funding requirements.  What they want is for the entire organisation to be seen as effective and to be making the best use of its resources.  But they are not practitioners and so they have to make their judgements based on their interpretation (generally as non-experts) of the competing claims for money which have been heaped upon them.  To them, success looks like keeping the funds under control.

The Procurement Experts

Then we have a third group who are expert in engaging the marketplace and ensuring that the process is conducted fairly and accurately.  Although they may well be absolutely committed to assisting the organisation to achieve its goals, their focus is on getting the competition run without a hitch.  They want a procurement exercise completed on time, without any competitor challenges to the decision and to able to robustly defend any later scrutiny of the procurement with a complete and auditable paper trail.  They will tend to measure success in terms of the level of adherence to the process and be less concerned (but not unconcerned) with what is purchased and its costs.  After all, they are not practitioners and it’s not their money!

So we have a process which attempts to bring each of these differing views into alignment.  The practitioners come up with a series of detailed criteria against which the procurement should be measured.  The money controllers decide the budget and what the relationship between price and “extras” should be.  And then the procurement team sanitises all these requirements to ensure no particular supplier or solution is obviously favoured.  This latter team then runs the procurement competition.  Whatever the outcome produced by this process is, this result will entirely satisfy all three groups – of course it will?

Well, sometimes it does not.  So where does it go wrong?  My experience is that it is at the boundaries.

The Boundaries

The first boundary is where the practitioners set out their requirements, which are then pruned back by the money controllers and the procurement team.  The practitioners know that they won’t get the money they really want so they may inflate their requirements.  The money controllers know what is going on and, in any case, they have to get the balance with the other areas of spend right.  As a result, they will seek to limit the budget and raise the impact of price within the evaluation process.

Then the procurement team will water down the specification so that it is “fair” and here is further potential for the practitioners to lose out.  We have seen that when a Public Sector contract is let, sometimes what is purchased works out fine.  But as a result of the successive dilution of the requirement, sometimes a purchase can be made which is entirely correct by the process but does not actually meet the practitioner’s original need.  This can often be seen when a high level of spend has occurred on a project and then it is suddenly discovered that a large overspend is needed to get the real results the business actually has to have.

The next thing that happens is that the competitors, who should know even more about their specialism than the “expert” practitioners, try to put the buying organisation “right”.  They do this by not answering the questions they have been asked in the Invitation to Tender, but answering the questions that “should have been asked” instead.  Of course, the practitioners may think that such responses are entirely right and justifiable.  However, the process police cannot let these “right” answers through; to do so would open the entire procurement up to challenge, delay and financial exposure.  This competitor does not get the contract and everyone loses, including the taxpayer.

Incumbent Example

We had a good example of this recently (albeit the other way around) where the incumbent was desperate to provide the ongoing service, but fixated on doing it at the absolute minimum cost.  It generally ignored the weightings in the tender documents and totally relied upon the information it was getting (from its long term, supportive and friendly practitioner contacts in the business) that ultimately cost would overcome everything else.  The practitioners, also, badly wanted the incumbent to continue and everyone wanted to avoid the transition costs of changing suppliers.  However, the procurement team had excluded transition costs from the evaluation (to make it a fair competition!) and, surprise, surprise, the incumbent subsequently lost out to what turned out to be a higher cost but better scoring competitor.  Then, of course, all the costs of transition were incurred!

In fact, any deviation from the process will put a competitor’s bid at risk.  We have had a bid which could not be loaded onto the electronic portal (because too many competitors were uploading bids at the last minute) and arrived 2 seconds (yes – 2 seconds) late, and which was denied entry into the evaluation process.  I’m sure you can visualise the challenge which would have arisen if they had been allowed to continue.  We have, also, had procurement teams who have helped their preferred bidder to the “right answer”.  When this was uncovered the entire competition had to be rerun.  However, on this occasion the bidder came top for the second time, without any assistance.

Process Divergence

Diverging from the process can also put the procurement team’s evaluation at risk.  We had another bid where the winning bid was supposedly 0.2% better than our client’s, who was told it had lost.  At the debrief it emerged that the price had been normalised (lowest price gets 100%, the higher prices get a reduced percentage by the amount they are more expensive) through a process which was described in the Instructions to Tenderers.  However, the procurement team had then applied the same logic to the quality score (100% to the best score and lower scores get a reduction in percentage in proportion to how much lower they were).  However, this process was not contained in the tender instructions.  Once this second and illegal “normalisation” was removed, our client had actually won by 0.1%!  In the end, instead of demanding the win decision must be reversed, our client accepted that the competition would be completely rerun for the sake of the “relationship”.  In the new competition, both these top scoring competitors came second and third to an outsider who decided to have a go when the competition was restarted!

The Supplier’s Responsibility

We have had many other similar situations which have all led to our belief that a “good” procurement cannot be achieved without a realistic and long term objective view being taken by all sides.  We believe that a “good” procurement always starts with the supplier.  After all, if the supplier is not more expert in its core business than its clients, it should question if it has a viable business.

We think it is up to the suppliers to educate the practitioners in the “art of the possible”, the benefits of its innovations and their constraints.  The procurement team also has some responsibility here too.  It must engage in really good market testing and then give feedback across all groups, to help ensure that the practitioner understands what is possible and available in the market.  Through these processes the practitioners can then make a convincing and balanced recommendation to the non-expert procurement team on how the technical elements of a competition should be run.  The suppliers, also, need to have sufficient dialogue with the money controllers so they can understand the cost/benefit of the specification approach the practitioners will be suggesting.  Then they can more realistically balance this against their other long and short financial pressures.

The Procurement Team’s Responsibility

The next step is for the procurement team to put a specification that works best for the taxpayer.  Artificially cutting out chunks of cost or capability to seek a “fairer” competition may not be fair for those that eventually have to pay the bill.  It is crucial to achieving a “good” procurement that the specification is not constructed in isolation within the terms of any one specific procurement exercise; we think it must always consider the wider aspects of what the taxpayer should expect to receive.  Moreover, if the procurement function is seen as an obstacle or blocker by the practitioners, it is failing and any subsequent purchase will not be a “good” procurement.

The Bid Team’s Responsibility

Then, the competitors must only respond to the questions they have been asked.  It is too late at this point to put the procurement team right if the published specification is wrong.  Either they must bid for what is asked or withdraw (which if, as a supplier, you give a good explanation of your reasons for not bidding, you may still get the competition stopped and rerun with different, better criteria).

Even more important for the supplier is that all the questions must be answered in line with the evaluation criteria, otherwise they may not be marked.  But then the supplier still has to make a convincing sales argument.  Woe betide the organisation who puts a project manager in charge of the bid because “a Public Sector bid is only another project.  Isn’t it?”  Do this and you will get a bid document delivered on time and to bid budget.  But you probably won’t get bid document which wins!

A Way Forward

So I believe that running and responding to a “good” Public Sector procurement competition is very different from procurement in a commercial environment.  We run consultancy engagements and training courses for both Public Sector and commercial teams.  Yet, on every engagement we find that exposing the aspirations, constraints and practices of one side to the other still delivers blinding insights about how things can be done better.  Counter intuitively, it is generally the most experienced members of these teams that seem to gain most from these insights.  Want to see what we can do?  Have a look at www.sixfold.biz or give me a call on 01227 860375.

I was at an event recently when the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock, raised a really interesting prospect.  He said that one of the things his team, presumably the Crown Commercial Service, are working on is a Crown Marketplace.  In essence this is the extension of the G-Cloud concept into non-ICT categories.  According to Civil Service World, these would be what CCS calls common goods and services, which can cover all generic requirements of departments.

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John Fernau was previously commercial director at the Home Office and has now joined Sixfold International to help its clients win public sector contracts.

He draws on his experience to provide an insight into the way Whitehall engages with small business suppliers and shares advice on how to win work from national and local government.  We quizzed him about his experiences and this is what we learned.

What did you learn about small businesses and public procurement during your time at the Home Office?

I learnt a lot about it! As well as being the commercial director I was also the Home Office’s SME champion so I was very heavily involved in setting out the direction for the department’s strategy for small business engagement. My strong view was that the only way to really increase SME spend was to make changes on the buy-side, rather than just having lots of SME market engagement which looks good but doesn’t deliver much. This meant that the Home Office’s SME strategy focussed on breaking down large ICT packages into smaller chunks which SMEs could contract for, mainly using the SME friendly GCloud framework where the Home Office is still the biggest user.

SME success is seen as excellent news by civil servants and ministers (including the prime minister) and they like to see new and innovative SME suppliers breaking through. Sometimes unfortunately the machinery of government can impede small businesses. My sense was that complex public tenders favour the big established firms as they already understand how government decisions are made and who makes them; and also they have dedicated bid teams who have developed strong techniques and know how to ‘play the game’.

I wanted to personally work to change this beyond what I could do as a civil servant, so I left the Home Office to set up Fernau Solutions and help to ‘level the playing field’ for SMEs and give them some of the understanding and bidding acumen that the established suppliers have.

What are the key things business owners need to bear in mind when pitching for public sector contracts?

There are a lot of things to consider: in strategic terms about which bodies within the public sector to aim for and in what order, through to tactical bid skills such as understanding what is important to the buyer (as shown in the evaluation weighting) and making sure your bid effort reflects this.

I think it is really important that businesses think hard about which areas of the public sector their offerings are most relevant and to target those public bodies. There is a balance here though, as although government is increasingly encouraged to buy ‘off the shelf’ solutions rather than bespoke ones, public sector bodies are parochial and smaller businesses must tailor their marketing and language to be specifically relevant to the those they are targeting.

Although small businesses want to grow and may want to present themselves as bigger and perhaps more credible operators, it is important that they play to their strengths. If you are a UK based SME, then say so very clearly. Small businesses are perceived as being flexible, disruptive, and innovative; and these are rare and required qualities in government, especially given the unprecedented efficiency challenges which will emerge over the next five years. Although public buyers can’t formally favour small suppliers why not take advantage of this positive perception?

What are the common mistakes small business owners make when pitching for public sector contracts?

Firstly, I think small businesses often decide not to bid for opportunities as their turnover doesn’t meet the minimum required. meaning they are too small. However especially in competitions for framework agreements, the turnover requirement is often excessive compared to the resulting contracts, meaning that smaller businesses could have delivered them. To meet the requirement on turnover, small businesses often forget that they can partner with, or sub-contract, other small businesses and count all of their attributes, including turnover, in their bid and the government likes to see this collaboration.

Successful bid technique is like good exam technique; you have to answer the question. Too often, bidders provide answers that are easy for them to put together, as perhaps they can recycle a response or policy, rather than submitting the right answer. Given their limited bid resources, it is vital that small businesses are disciplined and honest with themselves in making their bid/no bid decisions and preparing their bids. There is nothing to be gained in submitting a weak bid.

I think small businesses can also get a lot more out of debriefing sessions with government buyers. If a small business is unsuccessful in a tender I would recommend insisting on a debriefing meeting and clearly stating that this is about improving your next bid and certainly isn’t about disgruntlement or challenging the decision. This will help the buyer to open up and give a candid steer on how to bid better, and small businesses will find this feedback ‘from the horse’s mouth’ invaluable.

How can business owners who win government contracts ensure that they deliver on them and maintain a good relationship with their client so that they get more work?

This is really important as having gone through all the hurdles of winning a contract, small businesses need to deliver really strongly to build their reputation in government and capitalise on the effort they have made. However, I have seen even major multinationals come unstuck once they get into contract with government for the first time!

I think the most important thing to understand is the need to build confidence with your new client by setting out very realistic plans on how and when you will deliver. It is more important to government that you reliably keep your promises, than to aim for very quick delivery and fail. This requires self-discipline, as naturally small businesses will be keen to please their demanding new client.

The media loves a bad news story about the government and this drives the government to be very risk averse with its programmes. Ministers and officials need to believe that you will deliver and this trust is built by steady and on-time delivery. Proposing to ‘throw everything at it’ and ‘it will be alright in the end’ simply aren’t acceptable. Especially in a new relationship it is important to start building trust and credibility by delivering as promised from the outset.

If you would like to meet them and see how his experience and expertise can help your business prosper, ring Sixfold now on 01227 860375

November 2015

We have just seen that a court has annulled a tender award decision for “lack of adequate reasoning”.  This decision was made when Ricoh bid for a contract for the purchase or hire of printers and their associated maintenance services.  Ricoh was informed its bid was unsuccessful for 3 of the 5 lots it had bid and, sensibly, it asked for a debrief.  It was given several items of information and even more when it complained that the information provided was inadequate.  The contracting authority dug its heels in at this point.

Ricoh took the case to court and claimed that the contracting authority had not provided sufficient reasons for its decision, in particular not explaining (either immediately after the decision was given or in the subsequent correspondence) how or why it had arrived at the technical requirements scoring.  As a result, Ricoh was not able to understand why the contracting authority could have concluded that the successful tender was better than its submission.

The court agreed and stopped the tender award.  We wait to see what will happen next.

From our viewpoint, this is another step along the pathway to more transparency.  It gives us, as bidders, the justification to be given (and to understand) the full reasoning for the scorings awarded.  We have reported before that a bidder is entitled to a “full tender evaluation report” once the competition is concluded.  The Ricoh case gives even more support to the argument for release of this information and shows us that we have a right be given the reasoning behind the evaluation as well, if it is not obvious from the information provided.

The message is clear.  Unless you can see that you have been fairly beaten in the evaluation, you owe it to the taxpayer to find out the detail of why you lost.  Then you must use this information to put matters right (and protect the taxpayer from misuse of its funds) or to make a better bid next time (and get some return on your investment in this bid to protect your shareholders).

If you need any more information on how or if you should seek the details of the tender evaluation you have been involved with, please call us on 01227 860375 now for a chat (no obligation).

26th January 2016

The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is now a standard form for part of the Public Sector tendering selection process.  The Public Contracts Regulations requires a contracting authority to accept an ESPD from bidders as part of the selection process to reduce the administrative burden on bidders and the authority by simplifying the manner in which information and evidence is provided at the selection stage.

The ESPD is, essentially. a form of self-certification that the bidder does not fall within any of the listed grounds for exclusion and has the necessary financial resilience and technical and professional ability to perform the contract.  The intention is to reduce the amount of documentation required from bidders at an early stage in the competition by avoiding the need for bidders to submit evidence and documentation in support of the ESPD statements.

Of course the door is still open for the contracting authority to see his evidence at any point where it is necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the process.  However, it is likely that the contracting authority will not need this, except for the evidence from the bidder who has been nominated to be awarded the contract.  The winning bidder will have to produce the documents.

The European Commission recently published the standard form for the ESPD.  From today, 26th January 2016, in England and Wales contracting authorities must accept the ESPD from bidders as evidence, instead of certificates issued by public bodies or third parties (e.g. banks) to confirm that the bidder:

• Is not in breach of one of the mandatory or discretionary exclusion criteria.
• Meets the selection criteria set out at Regulation 58 (suitability to perform the contract, economic and financial standing and technical and professional ability).
• Where applicable, meets the criteria that the contracting authority is intending to apply to reduce the numbers who are invited to bid (e.g. for the Restricted procedure).

The Implementing Regulation states that procurement documents must reference what information the ESPD requires and that the ESPDs must be submitted with the tender in an Open procedures and with the Request to Participate in others.  If you receive an Invitation to Tender for a Public Sector contract which is worded in such a way as to prevent the appropriate information being submitted as an ESPD, please call us on 01227 860375 and we should be able to advise you on what you need to do to get the requirements altered.

If you think that the procedure chosen by your client will not affect your win chance, think again! It is vital you understand the possible impact.

The Competitive Dialogue has been around for some time and we have seen many instances of its use (and misuse) to date.  We are now getting some practical understanding of the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation and this note outlines how this experience is giving us more insight and warns of the impact this could have on your win chance.

The Background

Firstly, both the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation and Competitive Dialogue have many similar characteristics.  The grounds for their use by a contracting authority are the same.  The contract to be let must be innovative, it must not be capable of sufficiently precise specification at the time of going to the market or it must have risks attached that cannot be priced at the outset.  Each procedure then follows a phased negotiation and dialogue route and is designed to provide competitive pressure on the contenders throughout.

The Differences

The substantive differences between the procedures lie in the fact that the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation is a hybrid procedure, unlike the Competitive Dialogue, and the level of negotiation allowed at final tender stages for the procedures.

Hybrid Procedure

The hybrid nature of the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation can be seen in that a contracting authority can elect to accept a Competitive Procedure with Negotiation bid on the basis of the initial tenders, in the same way it would had done if it had followed a restricted procedure.  It is not forced to go to a negotiation stage.  Of course, this gives the canny supplier the opportunity to provide a complete and convincing response at the initial tender stage, with a reasoned argument for the contracting authority to avoid further spend on pointless continued competition.

Negotiations

However, at the final tender stages, there are also differences in the permitted levels of negotiation:

– Competitive Procedure with Negotiation

– Contracting authorities can negotiate with tenderers the initial and all revised tenders submitted by them in the competition, except for the final tender.

– The minimum requirements and the award criteria cannot be the subject to any negotiation.

Like it or not, the new Public Contracts Regulations 2015 are going to make a big difference to how you bid for Public Sector contracts.  Sixfold is all about how to finesse the Public Sector procurement to create a competitive edge. We have often focused on how the fundamental principles – equal treatment, proportionality and transparency – can be used as a tool to your advantage.

These principles, if anything, are strengthened by the new regulations.  This is particularly true of transparency which the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has detailed in one of its Procurement Policy Notes. It creates new opportunities and risks that will be of interest to all bid professionals.

Central Government departments have been told that after 1^st September 2015 they must implement additional transparency measures.  Other Government departments have been recommended to follow suit.

Firstly, the procurement team is required to discuss and agree the information that will be made public when the contract is awarded, targeting information that has previously been withheld.  This will extend to (and beyond):

– Your contract price and any incentives.

– The contract performance metrics and how you will manage them.

– The plans for the management of any underperformance and what will be its financial impact.

– The governance arrangements, including governance through your supply chains.

– Your resource plans

– Your service improvement plans

Of course, you might be adamant that you will not agree to the release of this information.  However, ultimately it is the contracting authority who will make the final decision, irrespective of any supplier’s wishes or protestations.

Then, all this information will be uploaded to a publically available section of the department’s website and as the contract progresses, updated so it remains current.

For suppliers who are new to a contract area, this will give them a highly valuable swathe of information from which they can prepare their competitive responses.  For incumbents, this represents another challenge to their ability to retain their contract at the renewal point.  For the Government, this will, undoubtedly have the long term effect of lowering market prices and so don’t expect this requirement to lessen as time goes on!

If you want to know more about how all this may affect your next Public Sector bid and how you can take advantage of these changes, we would be delighted to discuss it with you.  Please give us a call on 01227 860375 and we will be very happy to help.

Sixfold has been called in to help a large company resolve a strange issue with the evaluation of its multi-million pound tender.  The company had been told that it had come second and, in accordance with the procurement requirements, it was sent the scores both it and the winning bidder had been allocated.

However, on examination it was uncovered that the Public Sector evaluation team had added an additional step into the calculation of the quality score.  It had normalised the scores in the same manner that the financial score was normalised.  The problem was that this quality normalisation process was not included in the Instructions to Tenderers.  The financial normalisation process was there, but the quality normalisation was not!  Moreover, the normalisation process altered the ranking of Sixfold’s client from first place to second.  Once the “normalisation” was removed, our client had won!

Sixfold advised the client on the strategy for the debriefing meeting which it had applied for as part of the Alcatel process and then attended the debrief with the client’s team.  The Public Sector team was stunned when its misappropriation of the process was highlighted, but refused to accept that its process was faulty.  Sixfold drafted the formal challenge to the decision processes and the final decision.  We await with interest the outcome, which we will post here once we know it.

The Public Sector bidding processes appear to force you to bid exactly the same proposal as everyone else. This process is set up to allow the evaluators to be able to compare one bid against another as easily as they can. The processes seem to stifle any ability to differentiate your offering and slaps down any attempt at innovation! However, we all know that we must stand out from the other bidders if we are to win the bid.

So what can you offer to beat your competition? It appears that you only have two choices: Offer the same thing as your competitors and hope luck is on your side, or take the risk of offering something different and which might not be evaluated.

If you do offer the same thing as the other competitors, your only option is to underprice them. This is the presumption behind the Public Sector approach to procurement which seeks to minimise cost to the public purse. Moreover, if you are required to bid the exact same as the specification demands, you cannot bring your expertise and innovation which differentiates you in the marketplace to give the client a better result than it can appreciate is available outside of its own thinking.

Change the Specification

So the first rule is to get the specification changed! How do you do this? The best way is to talk to the client before the procurement specification is finished. Educate them about the possible and encourage them to specify it.

The next way is to challenge the specification. If you are clever, you can do this through the formal questions process. However, a better way may be to arrange a meeting with the client under the conditions of an NDA. If you get such a meeting you will need to demonstrate significant advantages, sufficient to get the client to cancel its procurement and restart it with a new specification.

Alternatively, you can submit a variant bid. Often the rules state you can only do this is you also submit a compliant bid as well. Nevertheless, if the reasons behind the variant bid are compelling, this will usually be sufficient to get the attention of the client’s senior staff.

Do It Differently

If the route to change the specification cannot be made to work, then you need to get your thinking cap on and approach the response in a different way. Consider offering the client the same as the specification dictates, but propose:

1. A proposal which meets their procurement process requirements better than anyone else (and, thus, scores more)
2. A solution which is developed or delivered in a different way
3. An approach which delivers better results
4. A solution with more reliability
5. A proposal with more future options
6. A solution with more growth potential
7. A solution with more flexibility
8. A solution delivered faster than specified
9. A solution which is better integrated into the client’s environment
10. A proposal with better after sales support
11. A contract with a better warranty or guarantee
12. A management organisation with more accountability or transparency
13. A proposal with better risk mitigation and risk transfer to the client
14. A delivery with more sizes or better quantities
15. Penalties for under performance
16. Cash flow which better meets the Public Sector funding cycle

Resonate With the Assessors

Finally, for each element of the proposal response think about who will be marking it and make sure the descriptions and examples you provide have the maximum impact upon them. To do this you must consider:

Who (individually and collectively) participates in and benefits from the project (including the citizens and voters!)

1. What you do or deliver best
2. Where you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
3. When you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
4. How you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
5. Why you approach it the way you do and what the benefits will be for the customer

Use your market intelligence and address each of these points as if you were the client. See what a
difference it makes.

If you cannot change it, then identify it, make it clearer or just describe the results more
comprehensively for the customer and how they will benefit from it. That alone can set you apart
and make you a more attractive contractor.

Conclusion

When you offer exactly the same thing as everyone else, you only compete on price. When you offer something different, you compete on value. When you offer the same thing, only you do it in a different way, you gain the ability to offer them something better, without increasing your price.

If the specification is so specific that you cannot have a better offering, then you can still be a better supplier. The customer is always looking for differences, so make them clear. Give the client a clear choice, even if it is for the same deliverable.

Ultimately, you can and will always be different. You have to make that difference clear to the customer and, most importantly, show the benefits of these differences in the proposal in their terms.

How important is winning your next Public Sector Contract to you?  Pretty important?  You bet your life it is!  So how would it help you to have copies of the recent bids your competitors have produced, on your desk, whilst you get stuck into the latest proposal?

It’s got to greatly assist you.  It almost feels like cheating – but it’s perfectly legitimate!  So why is it that so many organisations don’t get hold of their competitors’ recent documents when there is a really easy way to do it.

You get this information just by asking for it, from the department or organisation who received the information in the first place.  They have to send it to you (subject to a few restrictions) within 21 days.

This is all enshrined in the Freedom of Information act which presupposes that any information received by a Public body is, by its nature in the Public domain and any citizen is entitled to have it.  It further presumes that once the citizen (or commercial organisation) gets the information, they will exploit it for commercial purposes.

Of course, there are a few exceptions.  Personal information, information which if disclosed would adversely affect the ability of the country to defend itself or for the parties involved to negotiate in an on-going contractual or legal situation, may be withheld.  But the limitations are very few and the presumption is that the information may and will be released unless it can be shown that the act specifically disallows it.  Hardly any information normally contained within a tender submission is exempt.

So the route is that you ask for the information specifically, e.g. “all of the competing tender responses in the competition for the XYZ contract” and wait for the documents to arrive in the post (or by email).  If they don’t come, after 21 days you can go to the Information Commissioner’s Office Website, fill in a simple form and shortly after that they will make it happen for you.

The corollary for this is, of course, that you competitors have access to your tender responses too.  Indeed, they are probably reading them as you read this!  If you want to know how to stop them, watch out for our next post on this site or start a thread.

Of course, Sixfold has some experience of this.  Andy Haigh’s new book, “Winning Public Sector Contracts” published by The Guardian Professional, covers many of the approaches.  Why not give him a call on 01227 860375 if you want to have a private chat.