As the year draws to a close, it is often a time for reflection – including on the bids you submitted and the client feedback you received. We often focus only on feedback from the ‘past’ – what comments were received from the buying authority? How did we score? However, there is much (festive) cheer in being able to take on feedback you have received at the very start of the procurement lifecycle, to help shape a successful submission ‘yet to come’.
Client feedback can be generous like Old Fezziwig in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol or have more semblance to Ebenezer Scrooge. Either way, it is important to take the ‘gifts’ from both the past and future submission feedback.
Past feedback will contain many beneficial elements to help embed a continuous improvement ethos in your bid process applicable to bids won or lost. These include:
- Strengths– What has the evaluator highlighted as impressive? Is it a reference to a particular policy or client objective? If so, can this approach be used again for similar, future submissions?
- Weaknesses– What are the obvious weaknesses the client has raised? This could be lack of relevant evidence, which instigates a re-fresh of case study information to ensure correct alignment for bids.
- Key words– What key words or phrases has the client used to demonstrate what type of future supplier they want? These will act as clues to the hot buttons for future procurement opportunities.
Perhaps the more thoughtful (seasonal) gift from the procurement process is the ‘future’ feedback that will strengthen the bid that is yet to come. This is often in the form of solid pre-tender engagement, such as briefing webinars or ‘meet the buyer’ days.
This level of engagement regularly includes key information such as provisional scope of services, contract terms and estimated project value, as well as aspects such as what their priority outcomes are and unique social value requirements. All these will enable you to pull together a client focussed and meaningful submission when the bid arrives.
Bid feedback, past and future, should always be viewed in the spirit of goodwill, where lessons learnt and continuous improvement can be enhanced. Take advice from Scrooge following the visitations of Christmas spirits past, present and future: “I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
But what about the ghosts of Christmas present (the client engagement during a live tender process)? That is a fireside story (with optional mince pie and mulled wine) for another time…
Bella Stevenson
Bella started her career in bids over 16 years ago, coordinating EMEA-wide bid submissions for a recruitment consultancy. She has been working as a Bid Manager for 12 years in sectors including the built environment, facilities management, security, dentistry and the E-mobility sector. She enjoys collaborating with technical teams to build win themes, install best practice and develop creative thinking to win more contracts.
