Bid Benchmarking

You want to improve your Win Rates, but where do you start? Strategy? Writing? Design? Benchmarking your responses is a valuable and economical place to begin.

YOU CAN'T LOSE WITH A BENCHMARKING REPORT

  • Compare your responses with industry best practice
  • Identify areas for improvement
  • Receive specific advice from tender experts
  • Gain insights without disrupting your busy schedule

It can be discouraging to lose a tender when you know both that your price and offering were exactly what was needed. This sad reality is reflected in an oft-quoted maxim: "An inferior solution in a superior proposal will often beat a superior solution in an inferior proposal".

However, knowing how to improve your response documents is difficult without an objective view: a 'fresh pair of eyes'. Having your past responses benchmarked against industry best practice is a simple, low-cost way to see how to improve the quality of your responses and, by extension, your win rates.

What Are the Benefits of Having Your Responses Benchmarked?

  • Compare your responses with industry best practice
  • Identify specific areas needing improvement (Action Plan provided)
  • Receive practical advice on exactly how to improve
  • Gain expert advice without lengthy, disruptive meetings - or huge consultant bills

How Does it Work?

Tender Success has designed the process to be as simple as possible:

1. Initial Interview. Normally, this is done over the 'phone at a time convenient to you and establishes the scope of the benchmarking process.

2. Send Us Your Documents. Usually just 2-3 typical past responses (or current ones, if there's time) along with the associated RFTs/EOIs documents.

3. Our Experts Perform the Analysis. Our consultants perform a detailed analysis of your response documents, benchmark them against best practice and score them across several dimensions.

4. Compile a Detailed Report. This document contains scoring, the rationale behind each score and detailed recommendations for improvement - sometimes including reworked examples.

5. Closing Discussion. We arrange for another brief meeting to present our findings and to hand over the report. Next steps are discussed, if appropriate.

What Areas Does the Analysis Report Cover?

Our experts carefully benchmark your responses against several dimensions, including:

tender analysis report inset

  • Compliance
  • Prospect Focus
  • Strategic Fit
  • Competitive Focus
  • Writing Quality
  • Graphics & Figures
  • Document Layout/Design

For each item, industry best practice is described and then compared with your responses.

At the close of the report you'll find a series of recommendations for future development.

How Much Does It Cost?

We've developed this tool in response to the large number of organisations with a limited budget to spend on consultants. A typical report costs much less than having a consultant spend a day with your business.

Whilst the exact cost will vary depending on the scope of the benchmarking required, the following two examples provide a range:

  • Example 1: The Small Business. Joe Bloggs Landscaping is a small business responding to around 20-25 local government tenders every year. They have a very simple business strategy and their responses tend to be around 50 pages long. After a short initial consultation by telephone they send Tender Success two past RFTs and their responses to them. Tender Success analyse the responses, develop a report and provide specific areas for improvement. Cost: ~$2,000
  • Example 2: The Medium-sized Organisation. CorpSoft is a medium-sized software company responding to 2-3 very specific, high-value federal government RFTs every year. Their business strategy is clearly defined and their tender responses are technical and lengthy. After an initial meeting with Tender Success, they supply their last 2-3 past responses along with the RFTs. Tender Success analyse the responses, develop a detailed report and present their findings along with several re-worked examples. Cost: ~$5,000
  • Example 3: The Large Corporate. Acme Staffing is a global recruitment company issuing hundreds of multi-million dollar responses annually. Their business and sales strategies are multi-faceted. Following a face-to-face interstate consultation, they provide several very different documents including RFTs, unsolicited proposals and PowerPoint pitching presentations. Tender Success develop a detailed analysis, several reworked examples and a very detailed report. Findings are presented in a workshop. Cost: ~$10,000

To talk to one of our experts about benchmarking, call us on 02 8006 BIDS (2437) or contact us here.