Many of our clients outsource bid and tender writing not only due its complexity and unique skillset, but also due to existing day-to-day commitments. These constraints may prevent them from investing the necessary time and resource to complete a high-quality, competitive tender submission.
For organisations with the required resource to complete tenders in house, bid writing training can be a valuable investment in your workforce. Competition for public sector tenders is high and subject to stringent evaluation. Without the required expertise, the risk of submitting a non-compliant or low-scoring tender increases significantly – wasting time and staff hours.
Benefits to tender writing training
Tender writing training will upskill your existing team, giving them in-depth knowledge of bid writing skills and the public procurement landscape:
- Confidently structure tender responses by analytically breaking down the evaluator’s requirements and evaluation criteria, building an effective ‘storyboard’ for each response
- Writing sufficiently detailed content while understanding what will attract marks during the bid evaluation processes, and building your tender responses around commitments and methodologies
- Maximising the impact of your bid responses through a persuasive, concise style, recognising what constitutes ‘evidence’ in the context of public sector tendering, and how best to integrate this within the content you produce
- Effective bid management strategies, including creating and maintaining a project plan, raising clarification questions if anything is unclear and implementing a formal bid review process for quality responses and the submission itself.
By undertaking tender writing training, your internal bid resource will understand the wider bid process and save valuable time once a live opportunity is issued.
Improving the quality of your tender writing
Bid and tender writing is different from generic sales proposals, as it must address the contract specification, the wording of the question and specific evaluation criteria. Based on our experience supporting with thousands of submissions over 16 years, our tender writing training empowers your teams to confidently:
- Deconstruct the question as part of your bid planning to address all aspects of the question and maximise your quality scores
- Refer to tender documents when drafting responses, demonstrating compliance and strategic alignment to the contract you are bidding for
- Manage word limits in accordance with the topics to be addressed, weighing up every word, sentence and clause to provide the evaluator with as much detail and evidence as possible
- Incorporate evidence and testimonials via statistics from previous experience, actively persuading the buyer that your proposed solution is the best fit for the tendered works or services.
Training will allow delegates to confidently and capably balance descriptive content with persuasive, evidence-based writing – resulting in a high-quality tender submission which provides a clear insight into how your proposed service model will represent best value for the buyer.
Executive Compass’ tender writing training
Designed and delivered by experienced bid practitioners for over 16 years, our bid writing training courses are CPD-certified and based on experience managing more than 7,000 submissions.
Based on the training regimen delivered to our own expert bid and tender writers, different tender writing training courses we provide include:
- Introduction to Public Sector Tendering: for those just starting on their journey in the procurement process, this course effectively demonstrates how to source the right opportunities, initial ‘bid/no-bid’ decision benchmarks, and understanding how to complete essential tender documents.
- Level 1 Bidding and Tendering: delivered as a one-day bespoke workshop, topics in our Level 1 course include recognising the purpose of the tender process, responding compliantly to PSQs and ITTs, and developing an understanding of fundamental bid writing techniques.
- Level 2 Intermediate Tender Writing: positioned towards those with some experience and understanding of the tender process, this course is designed to help organisations maximise their success rates, including targeted insight into bid management, strategic bidding, structuring your tender responses and managing word limits, alongside an exploration of social value.
- Level 3 Advanced Tender Writing Techniques: our most advanced tender writing training is pitched towards organisations with extensive bid experience. Designed for these organisations with extensive tendering experience looking to finetune their processes and convert more losses to wins, the course involves advanced writing and bid management techniques such as capture planning, project management strategies, expert use of evidence and modes of persuasion in tender writing.
Our Training Services Manager Stephen Murray primarily delivers all training courses to external delegates. To find out more about the above courses, contact us at info@executivecompass.co.uk or 0800 612 5563.