As the bidding profession moves from adolescence into adulthood, our leaders need a seat at the grown-ups’ table.
When I speak to my peers, it seems were not quite sitting at the top table yet. Bid function leaders don’t always get a say when mum and dad are making decisions about strategy, budgets, targets, and the design and resourcing of bid teams. If we’re not involved in the basics of sound management practice, how do we know we can deliver the strategy and convert the pipeline in a way that’s good for the organisation and good for our teams?
Here’s an example. Research tells us bid functions widely rely on our teams doing overtime (mostly uncompensated) as a resourcing strategy. A risky one at that, because we know resignations creep in when burnout rears its ugly head. When we reach crisis point, bid function leaders tend to go cap in hand to their executive team to see if there’s any pocket money left in the budget for us. If we have a place at the table when the ‘what’ and ‘how‘ is being set, we can be part of the decisions.
Here are seven tips for showing the adults we’re mature enough to sit at that table and influence strategic decisions:
- Don’t be an ‘accidental’ leader. There is a continuing lack of investment in leadership training and development for bid professionals. Develop yourself and your team with leadership skills.
- Use data modelling to align bid function resource forecasting with your organisation’s strategy, objectives, and revenue targets. Senior executives want data-driven insights to help them make decisions. Talk to them in a language they understand.
- Showcase the long-term value of a well-structured bid function in driving sustainable growth. Demonstrate your decision-making skills and show you’ve balanced risk and reward.
- Have sound business practices for making the decision to bid. Use a predictive model and data insights from your win and loss reports.
- Find out if AI data analytics can help with the decision to bid, research and capture planning, or blockers in your workflow.
- Establish KPIs that measure bid success and contribution to revenue growth. Provide clear, concise reports that highlight bid function performance. Use these insights to recommend strategic improvements and investment areas.
- Get yourself a mentor and executive sponsor so you can start influencing the decision-making processes.
A place at the grown-ups’ table is not always a given for bid function leaders, so let’s show we’ve earned it.
Alana McCarthy
Alana is Head of Bids and Marketing for a tier one construction company. She has 20 years’ experience in public sector bidding within the construction, facilities management, and transactional banking industries. With a passion for lifelong learning, Alana recently completed a Level 7 Apprenticeship in Senior Leadership and has embarked on a MSc with a focus on the bidding function to drive research into our profession.
