Case Studies

‘We’ve lost confidence in bidding’

Leadership development training company, North Yorkshire

The Background:

The company delivers tailored leadership training for managers and their teams working in public and private sector organisations around the world. It was nervous of bidding, having invested a significant amount of effort in the past without much success.

The Challenge:

It was persuaded to re-enter the tender process by the opportunity to deliver a ‘leadership and management development programme’ for an English city council. Our job was to restore the bid management team’s confidence and help pull the bid together in a tight timeframe.

Our Approach:

As with all our bids, we used the tender process as a vehicle to test and improve management systems as well as challenge thinking and build stronger teams. There was no doubt that in this case their confidence had taken a hammering, so we mentored the company’s leadership to instill a positive approach while at the same time conducting a rigorous analysis of the invitation to tender (ITT). The contract turned out to be a classic case of making sure what it says on the label is in fact what’s in the tin because it was, in essence, an assessment centre project rather than a programme. We prepared a strategy document to help the bid management team drill down into what was required and helped them come up with a targeted response. Faced with a tight deadline and limited client resources, once we had the necessary information in place, our bid presentation specialists then took over to design a professional bid document.

The Outcome:

Working through the tender process with Bid Pro Quo restored the team’s confidence to such an extent that it went on to bid again in its own right. The bid itself served to highlight an area of opportunity for work within the public sector that the company had not previously identified - one that it has now diversified into.