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Winning Competitive Bids & Tenders

A 2-day intensive course helping you get a good return from your investment in bidding against competitors. Smart bidding requires understanding the client’s needs (even if the client doesn’t), hitting the right buttons, and knowing when to walk away.

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overview

Key Learning Objectives

  • Understand where the bid fits into the entire contract lifecycle and the changes in bargaining power
  • Learn to implement the people with the right skills
  • Know the client’s tender stages from ROI to BAFO and everything in between
  • Appreciate why clients approach the market the way that they do
  • Discover how to design and price deals to win
  • Appreciate the key issues when deciding whether to bid or not
  • Respond to client in an effective manner
  • Know the common tricks, traps and tips in making bids

About the Course

Bidding against competitors can be a big investment, and one that you want to ensure there is a good return. You cannot afford to waste time developing bids where the probability of winning is low, or where it isn’t clear what it will take to win.

Clients go to market seeking many different types of arrangements ranging from sole suppliers to panels, fixed lump sums to time and materials, and from arms-length to partnering.

Clients also have disparate goals and processes. Some want it cheap; others truly seek value for money. Some do not know what they are looking for; others know exactly. Some will have a very specific process-orientated approach; others may let you free form. Some limit meaningful interaction; some want extensive involvement. Some have teams of stakeholders involved; others hand over the entire process to consultants.

How then, are you to develop highly efficient bidding operations given the diversity of client approaches and goals? How can you get a return on investment from scarce resources when so many tendering exercises do not end up successful?

This hands-on course delivers the techniques for successful pragmatic bidding. The course consists of two intensive days filled with practical methods and numerous interactive exercises, case studies, and roleplaying as a client’s evaluation team – designed to assist you to determine the most effective techniques for your organisation.

Who Will Benefit

All personnel involved with deciding to bid and/or preparing bids such as:

  • Account managers and controllers
  • Bid and bid support teams
  • Business development managers
  • Commercial managers
  • Contract developers, officers, and managers
  • Estimators and pricing analysts
  • Sales and pre-sales

trainer

Joe Caruso

How In-house Training works?

Interested in exploring how our In-house Training works?

Cost-effectiveness aside, one of the biggest benefits to our clients of in-house training is the opportunity to customise and tailor the content, delivery method and exercises of a training course to their exact needs. In order to achieve this, we follow a collaborative approach to bring the client & the trainer together to explore needs, shape content and define outcomes.

This video will give you an insight into the process and how bespoke courses are achieved. For more information please contact Holly on +61 (02) 9080 4454 or email training@informa.com.au.

Testimonials

“I attended for pre-sales purposes and now know how buyers think. The instructor was knowledgeable and articulated concepts well.”
Commercial Manager, FujiXerox

“This course gave me good insight into the lifecycle of a contract and what the client is looking to get out of the tender process.”
Business Development Manager, Monadelphous

Watch webinar

Our expert course trainer Sean McCarthy delivered an insightful webinar on “Using & understanding contracts as tools for ensuring deliverables”.

You’ll learn:

  •  Overcoming some of the common challenges associated with managing contracts
  •  How contracts act as tools for achieving set outcomes across deliverables or projects
  •  The importance of contract interpretation and building confidence in dealing with contracts

Course Outline

Current state analysis of the bidding/tendering opportunity

  • Please bring along a current bid you are working on which we will work through over the two days

Activity:
You complete the bid decision checklist

Taking a strategic view in planning Understanding the lifecycle of a deal/tender

  • The four phases of best practice – and where the tender fits in
  • Building and managing bargaining power and the total cost of contract

Activity:
Assess the client’s maturity so that you can create a more targetted bid

Skills development

  • Targeting the skills that your organisation needs

Activity:
Plan the skills and expertise needed within the team

Understanding how clients go to market – answers to everything that has mystified you

  • The five possible stages
  • How clients facilitate bids (briefings, data rooms, Q&A, site tours etc)
    – what to expect

The tender document or ‘Market Package’

  • Structure – various formats you may see and your challenges
  • Conditions of tendering – why they are there and what they mean to you

Evaluation criteria and scoring

  • What makes up client evaluation teams?
  • Forms of criteria used – mandatory, qualitative and quantitative
  • How clients decide, weight and score criteria

Activity:
Act as an evaluation team to experience how this works

Pricing the deal/tender

  • Pricing options – client and supplier perspective
  • Avoiding the Winner’s Curse
  • Bidding against an incumbent provider

Activity:
You choose the pricing strategy from the three options

Client Expectations – hitting the mark

  • The contract scorecard defined and explained
  • Governing documents around the scorecard

Activity:
You design the scorecard to achieve the right business outcomes for the client

Bid/tender responding decisions

  • 1st generation vs re-tender
  • Assess client purchasing patterns
  • Assess client advisors – probity, financial, technical
  • Initial bid/no bid criteria
  • Alternative proposals

Activity:
You use the tools to identify which tenders best suit

The written bid/tender

  • What evaluation teams want to see
  • Differentiation – why should you win?
  • Statutory declarations vs acknowledgements
  • Statements of departure/compliance – traps for the unwary
  • References
  • Bid language – compelling the client to buy, but not to copy
  • Presentation and quality assurance – it will affect your credibility

Activity:
You practice a bid/tender response

Interactive techniques – what works and doesn’t work

  • Presentations
  • Site visits
  • Workshops

On-site & in-house training

Deliver this course how you want, where you want, when you want – and save up to 40%! 8+ employees seeking training on the same topic?

Talk to us about an on-site/in-house & customised solution.

contact

Still have a question?

Sushil Kunwar
Training Consultant
+61 (0)2 9080 4395
training@informa.com.au

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