Arguably the most important decision you make during your bid process is deciding whether to bid or not for a particular opportunity. This important decision is often overlooked, as some businesses opt for the ‘gut feeling’ decision and dive feet first into a bid without seriously evaluating how well the opportunity fits their capabilities and how competitive they can be throughout the tender process.
 

What is the harm in not undertaking a bid/no bid exercise I hear you ask?

 
The complete bid process takes a considerable investment in time, money, and resources. Chasing down opportunities that are not right for your business is effectively a waste of your time, money, and resources, therefore it’s wiser to invest your efforts in bids that you’re confident you can win.
 
Making the right decision also directly links to your bid success rate, therefore one of the first aspects of your win strategy should be to ensure the opportunity you are pursuing is in fact the correct one. Although each bid represents an opportunity for your business, not every bid will result in new business. In a nutshell, if you are struggling for resources or your bid success rate is low, you will want to ensure that you implement a bid / no bid exercise to your bid process.
 
It is worthwhile to note that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to the bid / no bid decision and you will want to build a customised process that meets the needs of your business. However, we have included below a few questions you should ask yourself in order to make an objective decision on each bid opportunity you are presented with.
 

• Is the opportunity aligned to our capabilities and core offering?
• Does the opportunity fit with our business strategy?
• How will the opportunity affect our business?
• Do we have a relationship with the customer?
• How well do we know the customer, their goals and issues?
• Is there an incumbent? Do they have a competitive advantage?
• Do we know the competitors? Do they have a competitive advantage?
• Can we meet all the mandatory requirements?
• Do we know the potential risks that could arise?
• Will the opportunity be profitable?
• What resources are required to prepare a bid and are these available?
• Do we have the capacity to deliver?

 
When you have identified the relevant questions for inclusion in your bid / no bid exercise, you will want to score them accordingly to give you an indication of how well the opportunity fits within your business. If you can positively answer these questions, then you should go for it. However, if a lot of uncertainty and negative responses surround these questions, it’s clear the opportunity may not be the correct one for you and you should explore other more relevant opportunities. It is important to implement this as early as possible in the bid process.
 
If you are still struggling, BiD Masters can help. We have developed a bid / no bid analysis tool that evaluates each aspect in a similar way to which the bid is evaluated. This helps our clients to choose the correct bids to pursue. We would love to review an opportunity with you and guide you using our bid / no bid tool. Get in touch with us to find out more.