One of the more tactical
elements of a bid is figuring out what (if any) clarification questions to ask
commissioners. Sometimes this can be a
minefield as the questions and answers are made available to all bidders,
sometimes necessity means you need to get an answer or you cannot continue with
the bid.
When initially reviewing
bid documents, it is always worth while noting down those areas you are unsure
of or that have not been given enough detail by commissioners (or information missing
altogether). Rate all of your queries
as:
·
Critical
– have to be answered to continue with the bid
·
Important
– need to be answered to get your model right but you could continue without
the answer if needs be
·
Nice
to know – would be good to be answered but unlikely to have a significant impact
on your bid
For the important and nice
to know questions, these are where you need to be tactical. The questions is, what do you want your competitors
to know as well? It may be that a
competitor getting the answer is more useful to them than it is to you. Sometimes you find organisations playing a
game of chicken, hoping another organisations asks the question.
Organisations I have
worked for have swung from the extreme of only answering critical clarifications
to asking everything under the sun. I
wouldn’t say either approach has been more successful than the other, but I
would say that make sure you choose what you ask carefully.
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