There has been a flurry of procurement activity over the past two months. Many organisations have been (and are still) scrambling to identify new partners and suppliers to support them adapt and survive. Who is preparing your submissions? Do you feel like a Jack of all trades?!
There has been a flurry of procurement activity over the past two months. Many organisations have been (and are still) scrambling to identify new partners and suppliers to support them adapt and survive. Who is preparing your submissions?
From many, many discussions with clients when preparing submissions this year, I have made five key observations:
Responding to Requests for Tender, Proposal and Quotation are:
- still essential for securing new business and retaining existing clients
- loathed by most respondent organisations (especially the writing part!)
- significant additional work for businesses as bid teams and resources dedicated to preparing submissions have been drastically reduced or cut entirely
- an open door (or at least a chance) for your competition (and a risk of you being locked out). Competition you may not have encountered before. Competition offering new and different ways of doing things
- proof companies are still buying! You cannot, however, simply cut and paste from past responses or rely on old proposals. In addition to increased competition (see above), many business’ needs have also changed (radically in many cases)
BONUS FACT (and answer to my original question): Preparing submissions is falling to senior managers or business owners to “pull together on top of everything else” (often after hours and on weekends)
Solution: Contact Hardie Consulting (the ace up your sleeve)! We can do all the work, produce only the content you require, review and polish your final submission or train, coach and support your team to be more self-sufficient.