Bid Management Survey 2018
Aim The world of ‘Bid Management’ is constantly changing. To understand the implications on chosen strategies, Atlas Professionals Tenderdesk invited contacts in the Oil & Gas, Renewables and Marine industries to complete an anonymous survey. The feedback provides insights into Bid Management for the industries we operate and help to understand why we act as we do.
Response Atlas shared this questionnaire through SurveyGizmo with contacts in the Oil & Gas, Renewables and Marine industries. Overall, we received a 24% response rate which is around 10% higher than the average for an external survey according to SurveyGizmo. This highlights the interest to bid management across the global specialist markets we work in.
The respondents are reflective of the scale of global industries in which we work. As expected, a high proportion (78%) stated Oil & Gas, most of which were alongside either Renewabales or Marine. With 94% based in Europe and usually with offices in an average of 4 other regions. Considering the scale of operations across these industries and locations, we also expected to see that most companies have more than 1000 employees (59%), the remaining had 500 or less. However respondents did not choose the upper middle range of 501-1000, signalling they are either relatively small or large and this did not differ between industries. Although there was a difference between company sizes, the respondents worked in various departments, due to the nature of our work most respondents work in departments such as Procurement (39%) and Human Resources (28%).
Findings: Bid Management Practices Most respondents informed us that their company has a Bid Management department (61%) and were then asked to given an opinion on their practices. With 94% of respondents based in Europe, we expect that a more standardised bid process is undertaken, due to the stringent directives on public procurement, especially for the industries we operate in which have a high monetary value on projects. In deciding which opportunities to participate in, answers were split between being sure or not of success; 47% have a robust bid/no bid process and a further 13% only work on deals they are confident with. However, 27% always bid with another 13% submitting proactive proposals in which a direct outcome is not necessarily anticipated. These answers were indifferent between industries and the size of a company, in fact they each have a similar amount of responses showing there is no leading strategy. We would expect that larger companies only work on sure deals and the smaller engage in more proactive activities, but perhaps there is added value in devoting efforts to both, fulfilling the entire scope of bid management and its different phases. Whilst preparing bids, 75% use an internally dedicated bid management team, one third of these had support from internal colleagues and only 13% used external bid support. Respondents ranked their proposals highest on content, followed by writing and then design. In describing their company proposals, when a bid team is present they are evidently more tailored to the specific client. But the presence of a bid team did not affect the look of proposals, 33% were already using professional designed covers and easy to evaluate layouts and graphics. It is often assumed that readers view the entire proposal as a whole, paying less attention to the specific details in writing and look which can have an underlying influence. Interestingly, when asked if proposals help to win new business, 33% thought their proposals are a source of competitive advantage, compared to 17% that win “in spite of their proposals”. With the most paramount answer, 50% thought they “could have submitted better proposals were it not for resource constraints”. This suggests more effort could be placed into the ‘specific details’. Also with regards to this questions, respondents did not chose the option of “we win more bids than we lose”. Suggesting they are either not completely tracked or publicised around the company, if this was further integrated support from internal colleagues could increase, helping to further develop specific content and result in less resource constraints.
Findings: Bids for Personnel Services The second part of the questionnaire focused on bids for personnel services, due to the various departments involved we received fewer answers which makes it difficult to compare with the type of respondent in terms of their industry and company size. Most respondents, 57% use an internal vendor management system to publicise opportunities and maintain communications throughout their procurement process. Whilst 14% use Achilles which is specifically designed for supply chain performance and risk management across the industries we operate in. With a further 14% are based on other web based applications. Over time it is expected that buyers use web based systems for formality and efficiency, but we do still see tender requests through email and fewer in post submission usually in specific regions. For bids, aside from any proactive proposals, 83% said their companies issued between 1-20 bids for personnel services each year, whilst 17% issued over 100. We see some companies making more use of bid management phases and terminology in their opportunities, for example an enquiry for a quote on services named Request for Quotation (RFQ) or questions about our company formally titled Request for Information (RFI). Therefore it is plausible that those issues 1-20 bids are more so an Invitation to Tender (ITT) and those with over 100 are more ad-hoc and relatively simple requests. Dependent on the type of opportunity we expect to see different amounts of tenderers invited to participate. Most respondents stated that on average between 3-5 tenderers are invited (60%) which can be attributed to the more time consuming activities such as an ITT. Whilst fewer respondents stated that between 6-10 respondents were invited to bid (40%). It is easier to evaluate many bids if there is less criteria and materials submitted such as those in an RFQ or RFI. In assessing how these bid activities are scored, respondents were allowed to select multiple answers. All respondents said these are scored highest by quality of CVs (100%), followed by equal attributions toward competence, track record and price (86% each). These are the ‘specific details’ referred to in the Bid Management Practices section, making each activities more tailored to the buyer. Strengthening the added value in taking a tactical initiative to spend more time on developing these aspects. With fewer for QHSE (71%) and organisation overview (57%), that tends to be the more generic aspects of a bid and is checked in questionnaires or vendor management systems.
“We as the Tenderdesk are sharing our initiative and proactive added value resource, to create more challenging business proposals and generate opportunities by integrating the complete Bid Management cycle.” For an Energy and Marine industry that always looks towards the next frontier and specialists with the talent and determination to get there.
Özlem Özen Tenderdesk Coordinator
Gurpreet Kaur Tenderdesk Consultant
Tel: +31 23 556 04 34 Email: oozen@atlasprofessionals.com
Tel: +44 117 934 2980 Email: gkaur@atlasprofessionals.com