International Building Systems Manufacturer

Type of Project

Bid management and bid writing

Delivery model

Remote working (100%)

Lead writer

Michael Lee

Duration of the bid

Five weeks

Value to the client

£800,000 per annum for three years

Service

Building services

Main Challenges

This was their first UK public sector bid

The Request for Quotation presented numerous challenging questions in a wide range of sectors

Difficult bid co-ordination and operational delivery of the contract
Limited access to information due to required information being located separately at their head office

Non-compliant policies which required amendment and lack of standardisation amongst the whole policy suite

• Geographical region – US and Europe
• Output – 60 pages of narrative response and policies and procedures include design
• Weighting – 60%/40% quality/price
• Submission – Electronic and hard copy submission
• Outcome – Won

Many of the submissions that we develop and write are from construction or constructionrelated industries. We work with a variety of companies including global corporations, regional companies and a variety of small to medium service providers. The contract award values range from as little as £80,000 to £6.6 billion. Standard forms of contract often include Framework, NEC3, JCT, MTC, PFI, DBFO, D&B and ICE.

This case study focuses on a large corporate building systems manufacturer with little experience of tendering, as it was uncommon for this industry to tender. Therefore, they requested our help in ensuring that they took the full opportunity to bid for the contract ahead of their rivals. We assisted the client with the following services, all of which provided
value to the immediate and long-term tendering process:

• Bid management
• Bid writing
• Case study development (within the parameters of brand design)
• Operational delivery planning
• Research and competitor analysis

The RFQ presented many challenging questions across a number of sections, including: Information Security, Thermal Calculations, Delivery Methodology and Cross-Sectoral Policies. We helped the client to answer these questions by providing relevant and evidence-based responses which matched the scoring criteria. An example of a question is provided below:

‘Please provide details on compliance with industry standards. In your answer, as a minimum please consider the areas of:

• Building Regulations
  
• Health and Safety
  
• Quality Standards
  
• Thermal Performance etc.’

In order to answer all questions within the tender effectively, we liaised regularly with the client to co-ordinate the bid as a whole and ensure the successful operational delivery of the contract. This included discussing the required and supporting information for each question, and formulating an appropriate narrative response. The main difficulty throughout this process was the fact that the client had little access to evidence and information, as the corporate head office was located in Germany.

To overcome these difficulties we formulated a resource strategy, which included a robust communication strategy. Following an initial planning meeting, in which plans for bid management and writing were discussed, interviews were conducted with technical staff to find the specific information that would assist with the structure and drafting of each
response.

We undertook further work to strengthen the tender submission as much as possible, namely the design and development of several case studies to fully convince assessors of the client’s functional and operational competencies. In addition, procedures and core policies were developed and implemented to illustrate the client’s Quality Management
System and their compliance with legislation and best practice.

Added Value

Added value is something that we seek to add to all the projects we undertake and that we
also seek to identify and introduce into all submissions for our clients. We know from experience that having a ‘unique selling point’ is vital, and so we ensure from our discussions with clients that we recognise what this is, and use it to seek an advantage over their rivals. In this we discussed the client’s USP with them, namely their experience of the industry and innovative solutions, incorporating these into the submission.

Ensuring Compliance

Following an evaluation of the company’s policies and procedures we established that two key policies were non-compliant. We therefore produced an artwork design and implemented, free of charge, two policies which met legislative requirements and the requirements of the particular client. The client’s whole policy suite was standardised so that each policy matched and was presented in an equally professional manner. Ongoing
collaborative working with the client enabled us to teach them how to structure their bids and think of them in a wholly positive way, to leverage key capabilities and aid project management from start to finish.

Outcome

The client was successful with their submission and we are now working with them to develop an internal bid library and strategy. This will include a bid/no bid decision making process, continual improvement, and a bid library, which will help them to answer key or common responses and allow more time to be focussed on difficult or bespoke questions.