The BidGeek Blog

There is no one simple answer and no single technology will always give the best results for everyone. You need to consider what you want the software to do, what problems you need it to solve, and which benefits are most important to you. Our Bid Geek blog article on the top 10 use cases may help you narrow down your requirements. 

I once worked on a multi-stage bid where the salesperson answered a PQQ, a pre-sales expert answered an RFI, and I led the team answering the RFP. All three contained a core of questions going into more depth on certain subjects. Problem is, our PQQ answer didn't match our RFI answer. Worse still, both were wrong!
With no single source of best possible answers, you're going to get inconsistency. Because content exists whether you manage it or not.

• Schedule monthly, quarterly, or annual maintenance reviews.
• Encourage proactive updates by SMEs as solutions, processes and people change.
• Build a feedback loop for reactive updates from users responding to RFPs.

Using scheduled, proactive and reactive updates keeps your content fresh and usable.

You might think of rules, standards and processes. While these are all good, collaboration and communication are often overlooked. Content managers, subject matter experts and RFP teams all need to be working together towards the same goal.
You want to avoid the game of Content Whispers, where the expert writes something, the content manager edits it and the RFP team completely rewrites it!

Trust is probably the biggest success factor when implementing proposal content management systems. 

But how can you measure trust?

One of the least recognised but most powerful benefits of proposal software is reporting. User adoption, content usage (and lack of), content expiry or aging, and new/revised content activity are all useful indicators of the trust your people have in the system and its content. 

There’s also a tipping point of supply and demand - when users demand more content, additional user groups and new use cases, then you know trust is high.

One of the benefits of a bid library is maintaining consistent branding and formatting across your content. 

But, for many bid professionals, branding (your logo, colours and design elements) is secondary to customer compliance and mirroring the style of your audience.Branding might be important at the corporate level but consistent formatting is much more useful for bid content. Consistent formatting makes adapting to your customer so much faster, easier and more accurate. 

That said, consistent formatting is often easier to achieve when you're also consistent with your branding.

I call this the snowflake illusion. Snowflakes are famously unique but most feature a set structure and all are built from water molecules. It’s only how they’re assembled that makes a snowflake unique. 

Another good analogy is Lego. I saw a time-lapse video of someone building a Lego Titanic. It has over 9000 pieces and some are specific to the model. But, many of them are standard lego bricks. 

When thinking about pre-written content, find the standard Lego bricks in your proposals. They could be your methodology or project management, your people and how you build teams, your market philosophy, your references and case studies. 

Building a proposal with pre-written content bricks means you have more time to work on the fine details and customisation of your bespoke proposal. Get to a good first draft faster so you can spend more time making it great.

It depends…

There are two main ways to manage your content. The best fit for you will be determined by two main factors: scale and engagement. 

1. A decentralised approach generally puts experts in direct charge of their content. They will feel more ownership but it’s also harder to manage consistency and collective quality. Engagement will be high but it doesn't scale well. It’s not so much “too many cooks spoil the broth” as too many different types of broth. 
2. The centralised approach simplifies consistency and quality control by putting a content manager in charge. It also frees up experts to focus on their expertise. Engagement may be less although a skilled content manager will help users feel full ownership. It scales well with a well-organised content team.

There's always an element of resistance to introducing technology. Some people may feel threatened and suspicious of the motives. Some are naturally hesitant until they understand the benefits to them. Sometimes people are simply too busy doing the day job. 

That’s why it’s essential to engage them earlier and more deeply to encourage commitment and ownership. 

Bid professionals are heroes at winning business the hard way and we’ve developed some impressive superpowers. A content management system is an opportunity to augment brilliant people with helpful processes and useful technology. 

Include users in your project and they’ll see that good content is a powerful weapon to aid them in the battles to come.

In 1903, the Wright brothers made history with the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. It flew 120 feet in 12 seconds.
Imagine thinking there’s no way flying could ever be useful or threaten existing forms of transport.
Now imagine thinking there’s no way AI could ever threaten your job.
It took decades for flight to develop to the point where commercial airlines were established. GPT-3 was released in 2020, its successors are already being deployed commercially, and its development is accelerating.

Yes, it is going to have a profound impact, in ways we can't possibly imagine. I believe it will be good for the profession and will make the business of bidding much more fun and interesting for those who know how to take advantage of the technology.

As with a proposal, focusing on the customer and their needs is the key. Explain to the customer why an extension is in their best interests and they are more likely to grant your request and think better of you for it. 

Here are six reasons that will help a customer understand the benefits of more time or the consequences of keeping a short deadline:

1. The customer has invested their time, intellect and resources in preparing the RFP. They deserve a response of equal or better investment including your most innovative recommendations and solutions.
2. The customer has asked for a detailed, contextualised and rigorous response. Instead of simply answering the RFP questions, you prefer to present all the options, ideas and information needed to make an informed decision.
3. The best outcomes are realised when we create fully customised proposals to meet the customer's specific needs. We want to take the time to fully understand the goals of the project and how we can most effectively meet them.
4. The customer values quality, which we achieve in our proposals through rigorous methodology, reviews and validation. We would prefer not to sacrifice the quality of our response due to short timelines.
5. To deliver a successful project, you aim to reduce bid, contractual and project risks to both you and the customer. You believe good risk assessment and planning requires careful consideration but will save time over the project lifecycle.
6. Additional time provides you with the power and flexibility to negotiate more competitive pricing for the customer with internal departments and your third party suppliers.

Many bid professionals can feel isolated but there are plenty of great communities to help you connect with likeminded people. 

1. APMP - The Association of Proposal Management Professionals, and especially its local chapters, is the professional community for everyone involved in work winning.
2. ThursdayThrong - #ThursdayThrong is a weekly online ‘therapy’ session for all those in bids and proposals to communicate regularly and informally, building positive relationships with those that understand what they do. Find YOUR community and connect, network and relax.
3. BidBites - #BidBites is a monthly session offering dynamic, bitesize learning from bid and proposal colleagues across our brilliant profession. You will hear insights and top tips from the bid professionals around you to prepare for success in the modern bid world. Come along and go with the flow – listen, learn and provide your thoughts, verbally or online - this interactive forum is for you.

To get started with proposal automation, consider the following steps:

1. Assess your current process: Analyze your existing proposal creation workflow to identify areas for improvement.
2. Create templates: Develop standardised templates for different types of proposals. You can start with simple templates in MS Word before investing in specialist software.
3. Build a content library: Compile reusable content blocks, such as company information, product descriptions, and case studies. You can start with some basic data in a document, expand to a SharePoint library, then look for specialist content tools when you outgrow basic systems.
4. Choose the right software: Select a proposal automation tool that fits your needs and integrates with your existing systems.
5. Set up workflows: Establish automated approval processes and collaboration features.
6. Integrate data sources: Connect your CRM and other relevant data sources to pull in client information automatically.
7. Train your team: Ensure all relevant staff members are familiar with the new system and processes.
8. Start small and scale: Begin with a pilot project, then gradually expand the automation across your organisation.