Bid and Tender Management Services Australia

What is bid management?

When an organisation puts together a tender (or a proposal, an expression of interest, or a major quotation) they usually put someone in charge of the process—this person is the bid manager.

Because bid management involves overseeing the entire tender process for a business, the bid manager needs to have strong organisational skills, excellent leadership skills and be good at written and verbal communications. It is important that the bid manager is competent in liaising with all levels of the organisation from the executives in developing the strategy; the content authors in preparing the technical material and the writers, editors and coordinators in putting the document together.

The key processes of bid management

Bid management is the process of project managing the production of the bid document.

A bid manager needs to oversee the tender process, from selecting relevant bids through to managing the bid team. There are several key duties:

1. Participating in the decision to pursue the opportunity (the go-no go decision)
2. Developing the bid strategy based on how you are going to best sell the service of goods to the client
3. Developing key messages based on what the client needs to hear
4. Allocating work to people within the organisation—who in the organisation will author each section of the tender (for instance safety should be written by the safety manager; methodology by the person who will manage the contract, sometimes this is the bid manager)
5. Preparing a writing plan—which links the first draft by the author with your bid writers who will edit it to be consistent
6. Coordinating the pricing and estimating process to be able to put together the pricing proposal and schedule or rates
7. Scoping and managing the layout of the final document with the graphic designer
8. Holding meetings to coordinate the bid and to resolve technical and managerial issues (and preparing minutes)
9. Preparing and submitting queries and monitoring addendums issued by the client
10. Overseeing production of the final document
11. Submitting the document before the deadline

Who should manage your bid?

In corporate organisations a large bid team will include a bid director, bid manager, multiple content matter experts, bid writers, a bid coordinator and graphic designers to do the final layouts.

In small organisations bid management will be undertaken by someone as part of their existing job role. For SMEs the role of a bid manager can be anyone from the managing director, operations manager all the way to the office manager.

Some organisations will hire specialist bid managers (Madrigal Communications offers this service) to manage their bids . This has the advantage of bringing in expertise and also of not stretching (and stressing) existing employees who still have to deliver their key activities.

The bid management writing plan

The bid management writing plan is the project plan for preparing the bid document. All good bid managers will have a writing plan that they use to manage the team members and to coordinate the bid response.

The bid management writing plan lists all the components of the document including the

• covering letter
• executive summary
• schedules
• attachments
• supporting documents

It will list who is responsible for each section usually the content author (or subject matter expert), the editor, the graphic designer and who is going to give final sign-off (usually the manager of each specialist area). Each section should be written, edited, reviewed, proofed and approved for publication.

Outsourcing your bid management

Madrigal Communications can provide high-level professional staff to manage your bid. Don’t underestimate the time and work required to produce a competitive bid. Lack of resourcing and over-stretching senior staff are the most common mistakes in trying to prepare a proposal.

Senior professionals are often required to put together a bid at short notice but are often unable to reschedule their commitments or manage the expectations of other clients.

Madrigal Communications can work alongside your expert staff to manage the mechanics of the process and to put together the highest quality of documentation.

What Madrigal can do for you

Our consultants have extensive experience in putting together successful bids for clients. With a professional team we will manage the bid delivery to provide guidance to your bid team and line management. Madrigal will provide senior experienced professionals to help resource and manage the delivery of the bid:

1. Analyse the requirements—explain what is required to your team and subject experts
2. Develop the bid strategy—competitor analysis, hot buttons, USP
3. Project manage the response—develop and manage a writing plan
4. Ensure adequate resourcing—make sure you understand the requirements
5. Develop a structure and table of contents—scope the document
6. Specify the necessary components and sections—sometimes the schedules are incomplete
7. Check compliance with the request for tender (rft)—make sure that you have answered all the questions to the right level of detail
8. Organise the final review—it is important to have an independent look at the bid
9. Provide high-level editing and design skills—we can provide professional advice and bring writers and designers to the team
10. Oversee document design and production—we make sure it gets submitted on time.

If you need help

Madrigal Communications can assist you with bid management or provide advice on how best to do your bid management. Please contact us if you need more information about our services or about bid management.