Report: Opinion Survey on Bid Management Profession

27th

May 2015

Vennu Manhoharr

REPORT: “OPINION SURVEY ON BID MANAGEMENT PROFESSION” This is the brief report prepared on the basis of responses received for “Opinion Survey on Bid Management Profession” through LinkedIn

Report: “Opinion Survey on Bid Management profession”

Vennu Manhoharr - [email protected] P a g e | 2

1. Introduction & Purpose of the Survey:

When observed the roles and responsibilities of Bid & Proposal Management Professionals of

various organizations, it is evident that the definition of Bid Management is quite differently

perceived and practiced depending solely upon the Organizations, Domains/Sectors, or the

Company Policies. To find out similarities & differences in job responsibilities of the

employees who are dealing with Bids/Tenders, a survey was conducted in the month of

January 2015 with the help of a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisting of 26 questions

was designed to collect suitable responses from Bid Management professionals.

The survey was completely online, conducted with the help of a questionnaire created in

Google Forms. The web link was posted in relevant groups of LinkedIn.com, a renowned

online professional networking site. The response was collected through Google Forms and

conducted a Descriptive Analysis on the data received. Following is the web link of

questionnaire.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14QpsIyKF3V-QbOMPYPD9GCI_oamq291QT3ikZ7kE8fM/viewform?c=0&w=1

2. Response to Survey:

There were total 46 Responses received from 17 Countries. All the respondents are well

experienced in the field of Bid & Proposal Management belonging to various industries and

positioned at different levels of designations. The last response received was on 21.04.2015

and this was considered as final for this study.

The results are being presented in the following pages with the help of graphical

representation along with required description.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14QpsIyKF3V-QbOMPYPD9GCI_oamq291QT3ikZ7kE8fM/viewform?c=0&w=1



3. Industry wise Response:

Major part of response received was from IT/ITES industry sector and few from Telecom,

Banking, BPS, Engineering, Health Care, Marketing and Oil & Gas sectors. Architecture,

Finance, Consulting and rest of the remaining are put under the category “Others”.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

52%

28%

7%

2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2%

Industrywise Responses



4. Experience of Respondents:

Majority of participants have 6 to 10 year of experience in the Bids.

5. Designations of Participants:

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

1 to 5 years 6 to 10 Years 11 to 15Years

16 to 20Years

21 to 25Years

More than25 Years

26%

33%

24%

4% 4%

9%

Experience of Respondents in Bids (Years)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

20

5

3 4

2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Designations of Participants



6. Geography wise Participation in the Survey:

The above graph shows the status of participation from all over the world especially from

India, UK, USA, Australia, some of the European Countries and others. My sincere gratitude

to one and all the respondents who spared their valuable time and shared this vital

information that can be utilized by new-comers as well as other experienced professionals

who are looking forward to make their career in Bid Management domain. Their contribution

is highly appreciated and without which this report could not have been completed.

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40% 37%

17%

11%

7%

2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2%

Responses-Geography wise



7. Response to Query-1:

The comments received for this question indicate that

Bid/NoBid decisions are made based on Tender requirement, Capability, Commercial

Competitiveness, Company's Target Market, Client Relationship, Percentage of Winning

Chances and finally the Company Strategy. Such decisions are purely made on the

organization’s competency and prior experience in the domain to deliver or implement the

project.

Bid/No-Bid decisions are supposed to be arrived at the very initial stages of a bid, preferably

within a day or two. In order to do the same, the organization should have a strong repository

of the Organizational capabilities and Bid Managers should be very well educated and aware

of these. Organizations who take a lot of time in this stage ultimately end up having

insufficient time for bid preparation and thus jeopardizing the quality of bid and loop-holes in

the solution.

Some of the organizations often skip this process due to absence of defined process. Due to

less business opportunities and recession conditions, many of the organizations are forced by

the circumstances to bid for unfeasible opportunities. Some of them go for bidding because

they decide not to refuse a prospective client and some do this just to show their presence in

the market/competition.

Yes, 54% No, 46%

Do you make Bid/NoBid decisions?



One of the respondents suggested following factors to be considered before coming to a

conclusion on Bid/NoBid.

Who is the client (i.e. does your company have any existing relationship with the

client?)

What – proposed solution / Technology / Service to buy/sell that will meet all of the

key selection criteria?

When – the due date of the response? This provides a Bid Timeline.

Why – what is your company's value proposition, / compelling reason to bid (i.e.

what differentiates you from the competition)?

Where –indication of required resources from within the business.

How (format) – RFP, RFT, RFQ, RFI, EOI, etc.

Competition – who are the competitors (known or expected if a competitive bid)?

Success Factor – what is the estimated percentage win chance?

Value – what is the estimated overall contract/revenue associated with winning the

business? Should also focus on likely margins both overall and within departmental

verticals to ensure a profitable outcome.

Complexity – how complex will the solution, contract and pricing structure be?

Partnering – Direct Sale, Partner Channel, Consortium (if a consortium bid, will

your company be leading the bid)?

Resourcing – is Bid Management required to participate? If not, why?

Mostly the decision is taken by higher management depending on the analysis done by Sales

and Bid teams. The Sales Heads, Bid Directors and COOs are the people who have the final

authority. There is an observation of the willingness for involvement of Bid Managers in the

process of Bid / No-Bid decision making because 46% of respondents are still not given

chance to get involved in this process. They are involved only upto facilitating management

in making decision by doing detailed analysis of the bid and providing pros & cons of

pursuing the deal.




Response to this question provides us multiple perceptions on need of domain expertise to

become a bid manager. This perception varies with the industry, technology, geography and

product.

The 76% negative response indicates that domain expertise may not be essential to manage

a bid. However it is opined that it greatly helps a Bid Manager to make accurate and quick

decisions and in aligning the objectives of the tender with the value proposition of the

proposal. In general the perception is that they must be in position to understand the

contributors' ideas, thoughts, alternatives and resolve conflicts or make decisions. Bid

management is perceived as commercial understanding and being able to drive a document

development process within a sales governance framework. This style is considered same

across industries. The skills required to be a bid manager are transferrable across domains

and so Bid management can be considered as an industry itself, an aspect of the marketing

profession.

The Bid Manager is considered to be responsible for submitting a winning bid and has to

guard the processes to manage the project. There is no need to be a subject matter expert

though a Bid Manager must be in position to challenge the SMEs to uncover the hidden needs

of the client and assure the quality of the proposal. A Bid Manager should always be in

position to find out whether the proposal is really answering the question or just pushing the

Yes, 24%

No, 76%

Do you think that the Domain Expertise is required to become a Bid Manager?



company sales brochure; whether the response is solving the clients’ problem or just selling

the solution. Bid Manager is expected to have knowledge of Market, Economics and

Information Generation with required Personality Traits rather than having a Domain

Expertise.

Bid management skills are given priority as the Domain knowledge can be learnt/inculcated

within a short span of time. Bid management skills are transferable across the industries and

hence it is more important to understand the bid process rather than be a technical expert.

The 24% positive response indicates that the Bid managers inevitably have to manage both

SMEs and strategic decisions and this is difficult without domain expertise. The domain

experience is considered a compulsory factor because it is considered to be helpful to

understand the client requirement, understand the competition, understand and identify most

suitable supply chain, rope-in suitable and competitive subcontractors, analyze the cost,

prices and mark-up, apply lessons learnt.

Domain expertise can greatly help a Bid Manager to be an efficient reviewer of the content

being provided. This can also help the Bid Manager to effectively contribute and add value to

a bid in key aspects like Executive Summary, Value Additions, Differentiators,

Understanding of the requirements. This will help him/her move on towards a contributing

role, rather than a coordinating or organizing role, which is need of the hour. Also, it is good

to have these attributes when a Bid Manager wants to take on the next challenge.




Response to this question proves that there are a good number of people (46%) who are not

involved in making Financial/Price Bids or they are not given a chance to get involved

though they are called Bid Managers. The opinions of respondents are described in below

paragraphs.

Ideally a Bid Manager should be involved in the Technical and Commercial aspects as

overall completeness and responsiveness of the proposal is his/her prime responsibility.

However, there should be separate teams owning these pieces. The Commercials should be

handled by experience Finance professionals having good idea of Taxation, Financial

Modeling, Margin and Revenue Calculations. Most of the times, same bid can be presented in

multiple ways based on Financial Modeling and this can play a big role in winning a bid. Bid

Manager should be involved to have a good understanding of such models and providing the

required inputs to the Finance Team.

Similarly, for a Technical Proposal, a Bid Manager should be able to understand the overall

requirements and architecture, in order to be able to identify if the solution proposed by the

Technical team addresses all the aspects of the requirements and there are no slip-offs.

Yes, 54%

No, 46%

Do you deal with all Technical Proposals as well as Financial Proposals?



In a smaller company, a Bid Manger is likely to perform all functions stated above where as

in a larger company these are performed by separate people in departments specializing in

each discipline (SME).

The other part of response (46%) indicates that there are people confined to only Technical

Proposals or they support the higher management in taking pricing decisions. They depend on

other SMEs such as Commercial, Procurement, Financial, Legal etc. to prepare a price work

sheet upon which the director level people make decisions of pricing. The response indicates

that some people are completely not involved and some are partially involved in preparation

of Price Bids. There are situations where the Bid Managers are not involved in Price Bid due

to company’s confidentiality policy. The higher management themselves prepare Price Bids

because they don’t completely rely on sub-ordinates i.e. Bid Managers.




The response to this query shows a great dependency on SMEs especially to get the

Technical content. The comments received indicate that a Bid Management Professional must

know how to deal with Technical SMEs to get the right content. Technical SMEs are

expected to understand the minutiae of their particular technology and the Bid Manager is

expected to translate that into a customer's business objectives and requirements. Sometimes

Bid Managers deal across a technology or domain where they have a bit less competency, so

it is always better to take advice from SMEs. Sometimes, but generally over a period of time

the knowledge can be built up so there will be less reliance on SMEs.

Technical SMEs are the solution providers and they are the people to execute the project after

winning a deal. SMEs are vital to the success of a bid. They make sure a right solution is

proposed for right requirement. The Project Managers, Estimators and other key domain

personnel are all involved in technical write-ups. Additionally, Safety, Environmental, and

QA/QC departments are relied upon for their portions. According to some of the respondents,

Technical SME's often tend to ignore the big picture and so a Bid Manager required to

translate the technical features/advantages in terms of Business benefits.

Keeping a good bid library can often provide a lot of the required information based on

previous answers and the knowledge gained from previous bids. This is a method of

maintaining repository of documents. This information is crucial to initiate the content

writing and reuse of the available content. Some portion of job can be completed without

Yes, 93%

No, 7%

Do you depend on Technical Subject Matter Experts to get Technical content?



involvement of SMEs so that they can be least disturbed from their own responsibilities.

Once some of the content is placed, then the SMEs’ help is needed to vet those documents to

get them revised and finalized.

Basic Technical Content has to be provided by a Technical SME. However, a Bid Manager

should try and make it customer and market relevant through inculcating thought leadership

through the understanding gathered via industry research, technology trends, customer pain

points etc.


The response indicates that more Bid Managers are involved in both Domestic as well as

International bids. But still there are people who are confined only to Domestic bids. This

variation can be further linked to kind of Business/Products/Services and Size of

organization.

International, 2%

Domestic, 28%

Both, 70%

Do you deal with Domestic or International or Both kinds of Tenders?




This is the response showing the majority of respondents interacting with Customers though

some are still not allowed to meet their clients. General perception is that the Bid Manager

should continuously interact with Customers/Clients though it is considered as the job of a

sales team.


Yes, 70%

No, 30%

Do you meet customers as part of Bid Management or Proposal Preparation?

Yes, 39%

No, 48%

Do you involve in preparation of Bill of Material (BOM), estimation of manhours of the Project

and Estimation of Prices?




What do you think of the qualities/skills required to become a Bid Manager?

Please list some.

The response for this question provided a big list of skills that a Bid Manager should have or

to acquire. The response is generalized for the sake of simplification and for better

presentation. Following are some of skills/qualities that are required to become a Bid

Manager.

Patience/Perseverance Good Networking with all stakeholders

Understand client requirement concisely Should Know what a good answer looks

like

Understand the industry (domain knowledge)

and competition

Understand whether the bid is in line with

the company strategy

Excellent understanding of Technical and

Non-Technical content of Tenders Highly proficient at multi-tasking

Good Risk assessment skills Proven interpersonal skills

Decision making skills Industry experience

Self-motivated Customer Relationship Management skills

Effective communication skills (Verbal and

written) Eager to learn

Project management skills Strong persuasive skills

People Management Skills Effective bid monitoring skills

Effective Time Management Skills Sound commercial understanding

Negotiation skills Competent enough to handle uncertainties

Conflict management skills Strong knowledge of Pricing concepts

Sales awareness/orientation Basic writing skills

Ability to thrive under pressure Economy and Market Knowledge

Business Understanding Quality Management



15. Conclusive Statements:

Conclusive Statements interpreted from this study

1. Few Bid Managers are given a chance to get involved in making Bid-NoBid

decisions. The Top management should involve the Bid Managers in this process

(fully or partially) for the sake of their career improvement.

2. Domain expertise is not a compulsory requirement for a Bid Manager. But SMEs are

always in advantageous positions when dealing with Bids.

3. There is remarkable number of people still not dealing with Price bids. They are only

confined to Technical Proposals. This trend has to change so that Bid Manager can

handle his/her complete job.

4. It is observed that majority of the Bid Managers depend on Technical Experts (SMEs)

for technical inputs and this dependency is not unusual.

5. Though Customer interaction and Communication are perceived as responsibilities of

Bid Management, many of the Bid professionals are still not involved or not allowed

to get involved due to various reasons.

6. The certifications such as APMP, PMP, Six Sigma etc are not necessary but they can

surely add some value to the profile of a Bid Manager. There is a positive response

observed. And also observed that there is an immediate need to educate employers

about theses certifications so that they can include the key words like APMP

Certifications in Job Descriptions when they post jobs.

7. Most of the bid Managers use MS Office suite, SharePoint, MS Visio, MS Projects

and PDF Pro for documentation and Document Management purposes. However,

some tools listed below are being used by some of the organizations along with

customization.

a. Qvidian

b. SANT

c. TenderEyes

d. Google for business

e. Edraw

f. Bid Tracking engine

g. Bid Compass

h. Zmags

i. OpenText Content Server

j. OpenText Tempo Box

k. Social media tools

l. CRM

m. ERP

n. Internal tools of the organization

There is no interpretable response received for other queries of the survey and hence being

ignored in this report.



APPENDIX

Before ending of this report, I would like to share some comments that were posted in

Linkedin group discussions by industry experts on Bid Management in India. I feel that these

valuable expert comments may be useful for the readers and hence being incorporated here

(see following paragraphs)

“In many Indian IT companies the Bid Manager is expected to be the Solution Architect who

owns the solution and the proposal, while in others he/she is the lone person who is running

around, begging to get content from different practices and verticals, editing the Native

English into an Understandable English, collating the content, formatting it and finally at the

last minute submitting to get the wrath from the sales guys that since the proposal came at

last moment they could not do any value add and hence lost the bid. Ideally in an

organization with established Bid Management practice the Bid Manager is a pivot between

the Sales, Practice, Technology and Delivery teams. If you are looking for a Bid Management

role in IT industry be sure to clarify the role, responsibilities and position within the

organization or you may end up being a Glorified Documentation Assistant with secretarial

responsibilities”

“The demand of Bid/Proposal Management in India is still at its early stages. Companies,

both big and small, have started recognizing the importance of a streamlined presales/bid

management team in the light of increased competition and the need to effectively

communicate with geo stakeholders across the globe”

“Earlier, larger organizations were able to “afford” their own bid management teams in

India, while the others used get this done by assigning multiple responsibilities to a single

person/department. However, off lately, companies are hiring dedicated Bid

Managers/Proposal Writers/Proposal Authors and this is not limited only to big

organizations to develop a more formal, defined, and auditable approach to managing

pursuits. Bottomline – Bid/proposal management is booming in India. You will be surprised

to know that Nokia Siemens has established the APMP (Association of Proposal Management

Professionals) charter in India, which is a great initiative. (Unfortunately, I have not seen a

scope for freelance proposal writers similar to what we have in other countries).”

Date post:	28-Jul-2015
Category:	Marketing
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