Even when a tender is identified as a ‘must win’ tender and the #1 focus for a company, we frequently see bid programs slipping and deadlines being missed. Why is that?

Well, it’s pretty simple. It comes down to urgency.

In large tenders, the timeframe is often several months. And while we know logically and rationally that we have a mountain of work to do and we need to use every moment, we can lose our focus when the deadline is still some way off in the future. Basically, we don’t feel the heat enough.

We’re all guilty of it… we have day-to-day personal and professional responsibilities that can’t be put on hold indefinitely. We need to keep other balls in the air. And sometimes, it is just easier to do the easy, low-pressure stuff instead of tackling the tough stuff day-in-day-out. Sometimes we want a break.

And sometimes we have several genuine priorities that are vying for our focus. Perhaps this big tender is just one of 3 that you are responsible for, all due around the same time. Or perhaps you have some critical project delivery activities that you have to juggle, with real clients on real jobs.

This is why many of our clients tell us that one of the toughest aspects for them of producing a successful bid is ensuring the team makes the tender their priority and commits the time and energy needed to produce a quality submission.

So let us share some lessons learned from our experience working on literally hundreds of bids. Following these steps will enable you to remove, or at least minimise, the conflict of priority.

1. Develop an appropriate bid time-line which includes a realistic allowance for juggling multiple commitments and responsibilities – unless people are dedicated 100%, we find it works better to demand short but focussed stints of involvement, rather than drawn-out, long-term engagements
2. Have senior managers work together to define priorities for the bid team and clearly communicate these –  this ensures bid team members are not faced with making decisions about priorities during the bid period
3. Engage external specialist resources to support the bid team – external resources provide specific tender preparation skills and most importantly, bring a single-minded focus to the task
4. Ensure the Bid Manager is free to focus on the bid and re-allocate business as usual tasks – his/her dedication is essential to leading a successful team
5. Develop and maintain an up-to-date library of professionally prepared case studies, CVs and other materials which can be readily tailored to suit specific responses – a comprehensive tender library provides a solid foundation for a response
6. Up-skill administration staff to boost resources during the bid period – this enables them to take on additional work related either to the bid or day-to-day tasks.

There’s one final thing that is worthy of mention: you need to clearly lead from the top that every deadline is crucial, even if we are several months out from bid date. When people miss their deadlines, they let the team down and put more pressure on other team members who have to clean up after them. This is unacceptable. A bid environment is not an environment where we can wait patiently and hope that people deliver what they promise and shrug our shoulders if they don’t. Manage every deadline closely and if someone isn’t up to the task, move them out of the way quickly and replace them with people who deliver.

Leann Webb