Many organisations grow their presence and influence in the market by successfully responding to tenders, and almost every aspect of your business is referenced by a well-designed, fully-compliant tender response. In fact, done properly, tender responses are a valuable marketing tool for your business and can save the purchaser & supplier lots of time and energy when identifying mutually prosperous partnerships.
Consequently, tenders have increased in popularity across all aspects of business; the public and private sector as well as large and small enterprises.
Many business development and sales people dread the thought of completing a tender document, believing that real sales are done face-to-face person-to-person. And, to a large extent this is true. Sales professionals will tell you that people don't buy products or services people buy people. This is equally true in a tender response.
The challenge is twofold: to get to know the buyers before the tender is published and/or, use the tender response as an opportunity to ensure the buyer wants to know you before they make a buying decision.
A strategic approach to writing your tender response will ensure you optimise your success rate and use the best of your resources. This will ensure you win business you really want - and can deliver it professionally. It will also help you to align your strategy with the client's objectives and goals.
A Bid, No-Bid Analysis. This will help you to identify business you actually want and make sure it fits into the long term strategic direction of your organisation.
A Competitor Analysis will help you to identify your points of difference and assess your realistic chances of winning the business.
A Stakeholder Analysis (and a relationship map) will help you to see if your relationships are strong enough to win the confidence of the buyer, and which 'hot buttons' to emphasise in your pitch.
Understanding both your own company's strategy and that of your client is critical to a successful tender submission. And, more importantly, it's vital to a successful ongoing mutually successful and economically viable relationship.
Contact Tender Success to see how our experts can help guide the strategic direction of your next submission.