A winning bid submission requires a strong, clearly defined bid writing process to stand a chance of success. Competition is high, and it is likely dozens of other companies will be bidding for the same contract.

In this blog, we share insight into our organisational bid writing process, which has allowed us to achieve an 85% success rate for our clients.

Why the bid writing process is important

In some instances, the quality or written element of a bid submission can comprise 100% of the evaluation criteria, for example, a health and social care tender we supported a Scottish client with last year. This further underscores the need for a clearly defined and measured bid writing process.

The difference between a winning and losing tender submission is often only a handful of marks. Failing to adhere to a structured, tried and tested process will run the risk of an unsuccessful bid, resulting in days or weeks of hard work lost.

Step 1 – Reviewing the tender documents and answer planning

Reading the contract specification and the tender documents should be your first port of call for the bid submission. Although it can be tempting to jump into writing tender responses early in the bid writing process, scheduling time to read the documents and bid plan will ensure compliant, competitive and high-scoring responses which are strategically targeted to the opportunity.

Once you have read the documents in detail, you can then begin deconstructing each quality question and produce an answer plan for each response. Our approach to answer planning includes:

• Organising headings and subheadings for different topics within multi-faceted questions
• Ensuring responses reflect the buyers’ requirements and specification, in addition to priority areas gleaned from reviewing the tender pack
• Verifying all elements of the question have been addressed, which can be challenging with multifaceted questions and tight word or page limits
• Identifying opportunities to include key bid win themes or USPs – for instance, by highlighting previous satisfaction rates on similar contracts in a customer satisfaction response.

Following the production of answer plans, the bid writers at Executive Compass would conduct client interviews with our client’s internal subject matter experts to gather information to include as content in the response. If you are part of an internal bid team, you may still need to gather information from a colleague on the technical or delivery side of the organisation – for example, a contract manager.

Step 2 – Drafting quality bid responses

Writing persuasively is crucial to picking up marks which could make all the difference to win a tender. Drafting quality responses is typically the most time- and resource-intensive part of the tender.

Failure to adhere to a proven bid writing process could result in:

• A haphazard or rushed approach to completing responses, which will lack any unifying style or theme to bind the submission together
• Failing to tailor content to the opportunity, resulting in overly generic or sloppy responses unlikely to gain the required scores from evaluators
• Not adhering to word or page limits or other formatting constraints which form the submission, such as font size or response boxes
• Missing key documents, attachments and appendices required for a compliant tender.

As such, it is crucial to follow a prescribed bid process when writing each response.

Incorporate statistics and data

Including KPIs or statistics of previous achievements provides hard, quantifiable evidence that you are competent and capable to deliver against the scope of works.

Topic for statistic	Example response
Customer satisfaction	‘… our approaches to liaising and communicating with tenants resulted a 98.5% customer satisfaction rate, maintained across all contracts…’
Right-first-time	‘… Our quality assurance measures and inspections, audits and checks have resulted in 99.6% of works completed on the first visit…’
Response time	‘… Following the processes outlined below, our strength of resource and strategic mapping will ensure we can reach all sites within one hour of receipt of an emergency callout…’

 

Data or statistical evidence can be used to ‘top’ or ‘tail’ the response – starting a response with a strong, assertive statement will make it easy to identify during the evaluation stage.

Write clearly and concisely

Lengthy, run-on sentences with a complex structure and multiple clauses serve no purpose in bid writing. In addition to making it difficult to adhere to word or page limits, overly complex writing runs the risk of losing the evaluator or making it more difficult to identify your central point.

Equally, it is important to ensure the content included within responses is not overly technical. Although some responses may be evaluated by someone with technical or industry experience, this is not always the case, and they should be readable for the average person.

Using industry-specific terminology may be required as part of the response, but this should always be clearly identified – for example, introducing an acronym by its full name or title.

Emphasise the ‘why’

It is not enough to describe what and how you will do something, but include why this is the best approach and solution for the buyer’s requirements. Internally, we refer to this as the ‘feature’ and ‘benefit’ – see examples in the below table:

Feature	Benefit
Previous experience delivering works or services for the contracting authority	– Proven track record of delivery against contracts of a similar size and scope of requirements – Extensive familiarity with the authority’s assets, geographic area and tenants or service users – Knowledge of policies (such as customer care procedures) and procedures, e.g. the client’s portal for logging, managing and completing requests.
RAC telematics installed in company vehicles	– Optimised routes if operatives are making multiple visits – Faster response times to achieve emergency callout KPIs – Reduced emissions due to avoiding traffic or congestion.
All frontline personnel issued with PDAs	– Access to contract-specific information (e.g. specification documents, site information and RAMS) – Instant communication with office-based or off-site staff – Integration with job or service management software, facilitating real-time updates.

 

Design and formatting

Although not a formal part of the evaluation process, designing and formatting responses (where permitted) is important in making it as easy as possible for evaluators to read, interpret and score each bid response. Examples of ‘easy wins’ include:

• Using an appropriate amount of white space within your responses, avoiding a ‘wall of text’ approach
• Images, tables, charts and bullet point lists to maximise the visual impact of your submission
• Including colour, your company logo and accreditations/certifications as part of a response ‘template’, if permitted.

Strong tender design as part of the bid writing process ensures your submission makes a positive impression at evaluation stage, producing a clean, professional and easy to read document.

Step 3 – Quality reviews and document checks

A crucial step in the bid writing process is to get an impartial source to quality review each tender response. This should be undertaken by a senior member of your team, or via external support, such as our bid review service. Enhancements and improvements should be focused around:

• Ensuring the response answers all aspects of the question in full, avoiding a partial or incomplete response
• Checking responses against the specification and other tender documents to ensure your submission and proposals are compliant with the authority’s requirements
• Certifying content is sufficiently persuasive, going beyond the ‘what’ and ‘how’ to include the ‘why’ as above.

Closer to the submission deadline, all submission documents and data entry elements on the portal should also be checked by a third party. Auditing these for accuracy and completeness ensures that your submission is not disqualified due to noncompliance.

Step 4 – Post-bid review and continuous improvement

The bid writing process does not end at submission. Following receipt of feedback from the authority, you should review the strengths and weaknesses of your submission regardless of if you were successful or not.

Tender feedback is the primary source of implementing ‘lessons learnt’ and ensuring you achieve continually higher scores, or build on existing successes. Topics and responses which received high scores can form part of your bid library, whereas lower-scoring responses can be focus areas for the next submission.

Bid and tender submissions are continually evolving and changing in accordance with public sector priorities and relevant legislation. As such, ‘model responses’ can quickly become obsolete or outdated, and it is important to review feedback and ensure your bid strategy remains abreast with best practice.

Support with developing your bid writing process

To learn more about the bid writing process we apply to each project, our sales and marketing team are available to discuss how we can meet your requirements, either through our bid writing service, bid review or bid writing courses. Contact us today on 0800 612 5563 or via email at info@executivecompass.co.uk.