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.
