Bid Management

If you’re here, you’re likely wondering what the difference is between ‘supply chain diversity’ and ‘supplier diversity’ – two terms that we often seen used interchangeably, despite meaning two rather separate things! Nonetheless, both are important aspects of building a risk-savvy and forward-thinking supply chain that can support the growth of your business.

Many businesses rely on winning new contracts in order to expand their client-base and scale their organisation. The process of amalgamating case studies and applications to attain a new contract is called bid management. Whilst larger companies may employ an entire team for bid management, for SMEs bid management is largely managed by key stakeholders such as managers or directors (amongst their other roles and responsibilities), as and when new opportunities arise. Whilst the latter does come with its benefits– namely a reduced turnaround time (with fewer people involved in the process)– with no dedicated bid management team, SMEs typically lack a comprehensive bid management strategy. Enter the role of commercial management.

Submitting bids to requests for proposals (RFPs) can be daunting, not least because of the concealed nature of pricing up bids. A crucial aspect of your proposal, the cost-estimate, allows the buyer to assess the viability of your proposal from a financial perspective and as such, putting forward a clear, competitive quote is essential. Nonetheless, organisations must also ensure that the estimate adequately covers the work due to be carried out, to avoid cutting themselves short. Developing a bid pricing strategy can be an easy way to take the stress out of submitting RFPs, through creating a rationalised and structuredprocess to draw up bid costs. Below we explore the most common bid pricing strategies.

RFPs can be exciting for businesses – especially younger SMEs looking to scale their operations. And rightly so - they’re a valuable opportunity to secure new clients. Nonetheless, not every RFP is right for your business and all too often we see businesses clamouring to prepare bids for contracts that fall outside of their usual target client or business offering. Whilst you may be keen to lap up every opportunity, knowing when to say “no” or question a project’s contract is a valuable skill for business owners – and one which may save you from costly dilemmas further down the line…

With technology constantly changing the game field, businesses are increasingly turning away from traditional solutions in favour of new innovations. As such, the procurement process is rapidly changing, and the conventional RFP process is now being overthrown by many businesses in favour of a collaborative bidding process – often referred to as ‘request for solutions’ (RFS). But what does this mean for suppliers? And what are the pros and cons of a collaborative approach to tenders? Read on to find out.