Celebrating 30 years of BiD Masters, we interviewed our founder and CEO, Pete Coyle. In this enlightening Q&A, Pete highlights how the bidding profession has evolved, what changes may happen going forward, and how companies can improve their bidding approach to increase the chances of winning new contracts.
What was bidding like 30 years ago?
Bidding has always been about developing new business, but in the late 90s it was quite different from today’s standardised process. Typically, the business development manager would find an opportunity through conversations with customers and their contacts. Having gained internal approval to bid, they would then go on to prepare the response with the support of a group of people they could gather together.
The newly assigned bid team would set up in a physical ‘bid room’, often offsite and away from distractions. For large bids, this may have involved several rooms. In those days everything was paper-based, and the walls would get covered in extracts from the RFP, storyboards, and Post-it notes. All conversations happened inside that room as the bid was painstakingly put together.
As the deadline approached it was common to work late into the evening, pizza to hand. Everyone worked together until the documents were printed, inserted into multiple ring binders, and packaged up ready for the courier to deliver to the buyer. A second set would often be sent by a different route in case of mishaps.
Back then, bid requirements were more open, so we’d create a story to present and sell the solution and the business. The process still started with PQQs and RFPs or ITTs, but the documents were much simpler and only highlighted core requirements of the bid.
What have been the most significant changes in bidding since then?
Well, first, bidding is becoming recognised as a profession in its own right and individuals can pursue a career in it. Today, many companies appreciate the difference between business development and bidding although most have yet to fully embrace it. They do generally bring in specialist bidding organisations for significant bids though.
Another huge change relates to how bids are structured. Procurement evaluators used to struggle to explain why they’d awarded the contract to one company and not another, prompting the need for a more quantitative approach.
We first saw this happening in the Ministry of Defence as public sector departments looked for a better way forward. That came in the form of buyers providing specific, scored questions for bidders to answer. The principle of maximising your score was born, and it soon spread to private sector companies.
Storyboards became a thing of the past and we developed new bidding skills to answer each question completely to maximise the score. Today, this is still the most important requirement for any bid.
I must mention the significance of COVID in evolving the bidding profession. Accelerating technological development, the pandemic prompted several changes.
The most significant shift was the loss of bid rooms. While a few organisations do still work face-to-face, most bidding activities now take place remotely, even across different time zones. While this has immense advantages, and cost savings, it can lose the urgency and miss out on the broader discussion from everyone being in the room together.
New technology has also removed the need to print and deliver bid documents. Most are now uploaded to a portal. This has relieved some of the pressure around submission deadlines, although document formatting and branded design remain 11th hour essentials.
The emergence of online buying portals has opened bidding up to smaller companies. They can now find new opportunities online, even if they don’t have an existing relationship with the buyer, which is healthy for competition.
While I’ve talked about bidding practices changing over the last three decades, the principles behind a high-quality bid remain the same. To maximise your chances of winning, the bid must be clear, complete, compliant, and compelling. Time will never change this.
What’s the biggest long-standing misunderstanding about the bidding profession?
Oh, that’s easy, it’s a misunderstanding about what we actually do! While recognition for the bidding profession has improved, it’s still not where it should be.
Bidding is not copywriting. It’s not business development. It’s not marketing. And it’s not project management. Bidding is a mixture of all these skills coupled with intense attention to detail. You’ll not succeed without this broad set of capabilities.
It’s why subject matter experts shouldn’t write bids. Yes, they know the topic inside out and write in-depth technical documents, but that’s not the same as writing a proposal. Bidding is the bridge between business development and operations (or delivery). We understand how to sell, and we understand how to create a compelling proposal.
So, as a profession, we must stand up and shout loudly about what we do. We need to educate industry and academia – the latter so they develop further education bidding courses to build these skills into relevant careers.
How would you advise businesses to improve their approach to bidding?
First, they must recognise bidding as a year-round activity, not just when an RFP comes in. Many businesses only fund activity when there’s a bid to create. This is a poor approach that leads to frustrating results in the end. There’s so much that should be done before responding to an RFP, and it’s often overlooked or left until the last minute.
Businesses must also upskill their internal team and teach key players how to manage the bidding process from start to finish. You won’t maximise your score if you can’t manage a structured process under inevitable pressure, even with external resources on board.
And when it comes to the bidding process itself, two must-haves are often overlooked.
The first is having a lessons learnt process. This can’t just be an informal conversation or a bit of finger pointing, it must be far more productive. You also need to identify and implement lessons at two key points: post submission, looking at how it was created, and post-decision, to understand why you achieved the outcome you did.
The second must-have is a proper review structure. Too often, a reviewer will come back with “Yeah, it reads well and is nicely written.” They’ve missed the key points though. Does it answer the question? Does it maximise your score? Is it communicating the benefits and demonstrating sufficient evidence?
You must give reviewers detailed instructions to receive more meaningful feedback that’ll help perfect the document. The lead reviewer must also know how to deconflict comments from several people and make a clear decision.
How do you see bidding evolving as we go forward from here?
The needs of procurement will always drive the evolution of bidding and buyers have got to continue finding ways to differentiate transparently between proposals. So, I expect the values and ethics of bidding companies to become more important and act as a differentiator.
We’re starting to see this already. For example, the New Procurement Act 2023 made it mandatory for public sector bids to include a social value question from October 2025. I believe this will go further as social value needs to become evident throughout the bid documents.
Buyers need to trust the company they award the contract to as they must have a strong relationship with them. So, bidders can’t just bid the lowest (possibly unrealistic) price and aim to edge up the budget having won the contract. HS2 is a high-profile example of costs spiralling out of control and the two parties losing trust in each other. Either the bidding was handled badly, or the specification was incorrect at the outset.
By having a solid bidding process and building trusting relationships from the start, you’ll always be in a stronger position to win. As we move forward, I think differentiation will come from communicating what you stand for as a company and the constructive relationships your people develop.
What are your thoughts on AI and the bidding profession?
Our rapidly advancing technology provides tools for humans to use. Able to process data, spot patterns, and make predictions in whistlestop time, AI is clearly a super search engine with incredible power.
When it comes to supplier assessments, like PQQs, AI can be incredibly helpful. It can pull out the required information from a knowledge base and save hours of manual collation. But you’ll still need to review this content and ensure the context is correct. So, a layer of human intelligence will always be required following AI support.
When it comes to creating the RFP response, AI is able to help with the structure and provide an outline response. But drafting a compelling response comes down to human bid writers making decisions with subject matter experts.
And I’d distinguish between human intelligence and human intellect here. With AI onboard, we’ll still need human intellect at many levels. It’s people that truly understand what the buyer wants, so they must use their intellect to deliver a compelling message while creating trusting relationships to differentiate the company from all the similarly AI-written documents we’re bound to experience.
When it comes to 30-year-old BiD Masters, what are you most proud of?
Without doubt, it’s our people and our culture.
Today, we have over 30 Bidmasters. They all bring their brilliant experience and skills to the company, whether that’s a 30-year bidding career or another specialist skill.
The way we run the business is different to many organisations. By forming long-standing partnerships with our team, we resource flexible support for our clients exactly when they need it.
Not a typical 9-5 organisation, many Bidmasters work outside office hours and are located in various time zones, which helps when delivering support internationally. And there’s such a supportive “family” culture here. We all love what we do and we’re always transferring skills to help each other.
I’m also proud of our REWARD® process which shapes everything we do. Clients can rely on us to deliver a structured approach and yet be incredibly flexible when necessary. I’d say that’s the best of both worlds.
