Tip of the Day - Playing to your strengths

Always play to the strengths of your organisation when bidding for a contract.  This sounds obvious but a lot of the time organisations get side-tracked by trying to come across as something that they plaint are not.  If you do this, you will get found out, either at interview or even during service delivery if you win the contract; this will potentially have catastrophic consequences for your reputation.

On an organisational type level, examples of playing to your strengths are:

·         Large Corporates – play on your size and the infrastructure you have at your disposal such as IM&T and HR

·         Social Enterprises – public sector commissioners love social enterprises so play up on the employee owned model and how this helps deliver great services

·         Smaller Specialist Organisations – play on your excellence in service delivery and how it is innovative, safe, etc.

Now the above are broad brush stereotypes but you get the impression.  Of course to balance our playing to your strengths you also need to minimise your weaknesses, but that is a tip for another day.