Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Tip of the Day – Solution before Bid

Around 50% of the bids I have worked on have had the solution for the service led by the bid…this is not best practice!  I understand time limits and the information available may necessitate this at times, but where it can be avoided it should be.

From the decision that is made to bid for a contract (e.g. from advert stage) organisations should start think about how they would ideally provide the service. This solution can be worked and developed over the procurement so that by the time of the final tender, there is a clear vision that can be written about.

On the other side of the coin, you should not be coming to the final tender with no idea of how you want to provide and just waiting for the final specification to shape your thoughts.  This reactive way of developing service solutions can and does lead to mistakes, both in the bid and the financial solution. It can also lead to implementation and operational problems should the bid be won.


A good service can be traced back to the right people taking the time to shape service solutions at the start of a procurement process. The long-term pay off from this, both for the bid and the service, is worth it in the end.

No comments:

Post a Comment