WHEN WRITING BIDS, TIME IS A PRECIOUS THING!
Not only is there an imminent deadline, but if you don’t give it your all and put everything you have into the bid, then it’s not only time you’re wasting – it’s money!
We’ve provided a few best practice principles to make sure you don’t create unnecessary panic at the last minute and can time-manage your bids more effectively.
1. Know your deadlines
There will have been times in the past, especially if you’re handling more than one tender at a time, where a date may have been mixed up and you’ve realised that the bid is due in 24 minutes and not 24 hours as thought. Read the tender timetable carefully – this will enable you to start planning effectively. Tender Timetables are featured in the instructions to tender and look something like this:
|
Example Date |
Example Milestone |
|
02-July-2018 |
Opportunity published |
|
12-July-2018 |
Site Visits |
|
23-July-2018 |
Clarification Deadline |
|
27-July-2018 |
Submission Deadline |
|
30-July-2018 |
Presentation Date |
|
31-July-2018 – 03-Aug-2018 |
Evaluation |
|
03-Aug-2018 |
Notice to Award / Alcatel commence |
| 13-Aug-2018 |
Contract Start Date |
2. Assess & Digest
Make sure you assess whether or not the opportunity is the best option for you. We have been behind many projects in the past, working tirelessly on content and writing bids on behalf of our clients, when 2 days before submission, they decided it’s not right for them. Don’t waste your time and money – make sure it is right for you by closely digesting ALL of the information at hand. Yes – it may be a 100-page document you have to read through but believe us – it’ll be worth it in the long run.
Check out our ‘To Bid or not to Bid’ for further information.
3. Gantt Chart is life
Once you know the buyer’s timescales, now it’s time to get yours in order. This is where you create a plan for the tender at hand. No matter the size of the opportunity, whether it’s £10,000 or £10million, it’s very important to make sure you’re not winging it and have a structured plan in place to manage your time and approach effectively. A Gantt Chart is typically used in project management cases for longer periods, detailing responsibilities, activities and timescales. We love a good Gantt Chart and feel this is a clear-cut process for managing those all-important milestones when developing and submitting a tender.
4. Know your portal
We’ve liaised with many customers, who have never used a specific online portal before and the submission of their tender documents have been delayed due to their lack of understanding or inability to navigate. We recommend you get to know your portal in the early stages. Have a click around and know your procedures for submission.
One of the key things that our group of companies can offer you is the chance of receiving the opportunity from the get-go, meaning you won’t be days behind other competitors – if anything, you’ll be days in front: –
Our Tender Connect service is the home of our industry-specific platforms that enables you to receive both public and private opportunities all in one place, that is specific not only to your sector but your service within that sector. Get those all-important opportunities from when they are published, allowing more time to focus on your time management when developing your response[s].