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Winning proposals A practical guide Qvidian Connect11 Europe London, 17 May 2011 Jon Williams PPF.APMP Managing Director Strategic Proposals Limited © Strategic Proposals 2011
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Winning proposalsA practical guide
Qvidian Connect11 EuropeLondon, 17 May 2011
Jon Williams PPF.APMP
Managing Director
Strategic Proposals Limited
© Strategic Proposals 2011
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals 2
Roadmap for this presentation
Winning proposal content
2 Benchmarking your proposal capabilities
3 Discussion / questions
1
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Let us play…
• Prospero Limited has issued a RFP
• Please critique the opening answers from proposal submitted by Stanmoor, one of the bidders
3
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Development & benchmarking framework
Centre of Excellence –
professional staff leading
proposal & presentation effort
Focus: superbly articulate a
compelling story
End-to-end, strategic process
High quality output
No proposal support
Focus: “Get them a
document”
Inconsistent output
Salespeople tied to
office
Back-office ‘factory’
Reactive to RFP
Focus: a complete,
compliant document
Chase everything
Manage bid + proposal
AD-HOC TACTICAL STRATEGIC
Maximise win rates
Optimise costs
Reduce risk
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 1
Chase the right deals
Qualify!
Is it real?
Do we want it?
Can we win
it?
Can we do
it?
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 2
Prepare to win
A robust pre-proposal planning
process, or…?
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 3
Tell a story
A great proposal
superbly articulates
a compelling story.
‘Why us, why not them?’
CompetitionCapability
Customer
Strategy
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 4
Design & write persuasive content
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 5
Design your documents to be easy to evaluate
Structure
Layout
Graphics
Packaging
Formats
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 6
Review proposals professionally
“
”
The scariest moment of our bid?
When the customer told us we’d won!
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 7
An appropriately-resourced proposal function
A back office factory, fuelled by “late nights, cold
pizza”?
Or a key function in winning business & creating jobs?
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 8
Train all of those involved
“All of those
involved in
proposal
development must
have the
necessary skills”
BJ Lownie
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 9
Equip the team with the right tools
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Benchmarking area 10
Learn and improve
Client debriefs
Internal learning
Client audits
Benchmarking
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
“Critical”
“Critically important”
“Very important”
“Increasingly”
“Extremely important”
“Very important”
“Very important”
“V important”
“Very”
“Crucially important”
“Are proposals important?”
Source: The Buyer’s Guide to Bidding – Mullins & Williams – January 2010
15
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
“Huge variation… some are articulate, really have got under my skin, are really convincing –whereas others look mechanical, dull, pre-written and could have
been meant for anyone.”
Procurement director, financial services
How good are proposals?
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
are so bad they have just copied their sales blurb
Head of IT Procurement, retail sector
5%
do not actually answer the questions posed, and try and shoehorn a ready made answer to almost any question
have answered the questions without the hard sell, but have woven into the bid reasons why you want to do business with that organisation
At least
15%
The best
The ugly, the bad – and the (few) very good
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
“They vary from
excellent (rare) to
awful (quite common).
But most of them are
mediocre.” Chief purchasing officer,
telecoms sector
Excellence is rare: an opportunity?
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Delivering tangible benefits“Win more, win more easily”
Initial customer win rate
Win rate after Strategic Proposals intervention
“Winning Proposals”Jon Williams – Strategic Proposals
Questions, discussion, arguments…?!
Jon Williams
+44 (0)781 333 2294
