How to Achieve Consistent Quality in Your Bids

Bidding for contracts and successfully winning on a consistent basis will provide your business with long-term development opportunities.

However, medium-sized businesses often undermine their prospects of success through a lack of consistent quality in their bids. This wastes time, money and resources. Use the following measures to increase your success rate:

Reviews

In many cases you can learn more from a losing than a winning bid. Have a look at all the previous bids you have submitted and consider what you have done well and what you can improve. If you are continuously asked the same questions, analyse whether you actually answer them or whether you make the same mistakes every time. Seek an objective review of your work to critique its quality properly.

Feedback

Contacting the contracting authority after every contract award can give you invaluable feedback on the quality of your responses. This will help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your bids and provide direct feedback which you can use in the future.

Bid Ready

Consider whether your policies, procedures and supporting documents are of the highest possible quality. These should be monitored, reviewed and analysed by a designated person at least once a year. Having quality management systems in place will help this process and demonstrate your commitment to continual improvement.

Bid Library

Compiling your best responses to each type of question you face is a very effective way of ensuring consistent quality. These can then be used and amended each time you bid to ensure a high quality answer which fully answers the question. Do not use the same standard answers each time – assessors want to see personalised and interesting answers. Keeping a bid library is also useful for when a contract is re-issued and you are bidding as the incumbent.

Staff Training

Having all the correct systems in place means nothing without your staff being fully trained to deliver the services under a contract. Assessors want to know that suitably skilled, experienced and trained staff will be assigned to the contract. Have evidence readily available of the training and professional development you offer to staff and management to provide full reassurance to assessors.

As the UK’s leading bid management and writing company we have helped countless firms increase their success rate, saving the costs associated with unsuccessful bids. We offer a number of services to help companies achieve and maintain consistent quality in their bids. This ranges from full PQQ and tender writing services, to training and review services tailored to your business. Contact us free on 0800 612 5563 to discuss how we can help you.