It is not difficult to receive bids and tenders – it takes a certain amount of business development – but companies are generally prepared to send PQQs (Pre Qualification Questionnaires), RFIs (Requests for Information) and ITTs (Invitation to Tender) to requesting suppliers. That’s the easy bit. The hard bit is being honest with yourself and objectively deciding which of these opportunities might be winnable if you bid.

In any bid there is a need to assess the chance of success. There is too much temptation simply to respond to the opportunity in the hope that you might “get lucky”! There are a number of criteria to work through:

• Do you know why the company is undertaking the bid?

• Is your organisation presently supplying to the company?

• Has that service been consistently good?

• Do you know the size of the opportunity – how many people do they recruit annually, for instance?

• Do you have “friends” within the target company and who can be positive helpers/influencers in the bid process?

• Has there been regular face-to-face contact with the company or is the relationship simply transactional?

• Will the company see your team to discuss the bid before submission?

• Who are your competitors and how many are there?

• What benefits/advantages do you have that differentiate you?

• What are your weak areas and how can you overcome them?

• Can you properly service the business?

• Are you really enthusiastic to win the business – this will show through?

• Can you develop an excellent response within the deadline?

• Are you simply being used to make up the numbers within a “beauty parade”?

• Do you fully understand the process – i.e. presentation/negotiation phase, timescales on decision, decision makers, marking criteria?

All of these questions need to be answered honestly. It simply isn’t good enough to bid because the recruitment consultant says you should. They won’t take into account the time and effort required to bid and the associated costs. Work through these questions with the recruiters involved as well as peer members such as finance. Use a weighting system in assessing the answers – be honest with yourself and you will then approach the bid with more expectation than hope – a good start point.

Of course you shouldn’t be so ’sniffy’ that you don’t bid 90% of the time. There will be times when you bid because you want to break into a sector – for instance - and you want to hone your offering – feedback from the target company will be invaluable in helping you improve your service. There is also the old adage that practice makes perfect and the more bids you complete the better you will get but there is no upside in bidding to lose and it will simply demoralise your organisation to receive all those rejections letters.

The first thing to do is be honest – is this opportunity right for you – that is the question!