How We Work

Our working principles

At the heart of how we work are three principles: listening to our clients, tailoring our service every time, and being open and accessible throughout every engagement.

Our approach is supportive, but also challenging and rigorous, as we believe that brings the best out of our clients. And, because no two businesses are the same, our support is always flexible and never standardised.

Our methodology

In providing our consultancy advice and support, we draw on our expertise in procurement and our knowledge and experience of the public and private sectors, and apply a proven methodology that has produced a strike rate of over 80% on the bids we have supported. Across all our services, we use The Bidding Consultancy 7 C’s Bid Performance Model™ - covering the key dimensions of bidding success - as the backbone of our work in assessing and developing our clients’ bidding capability.

The process

Our starting point for assignments is usually a face to face team meeting. This helps to establish our working relationship with the client and ensure that we have a full understanding of your business and your specific needs and objectives. For all our services, we agree the scope, timescale and outcomes with the client in advance.

For Hands-On Tendering support, we will agree the project timetable, roles and responsibilities - including consortium partners and sub-contractors - and key milestones at the beginning, so that there is clarity about what needs to be done, by whom, and to what deadline. Once the assignment is underway, most of our support is provided online and over the phone, reducing the need, and cost, of face-to-face meetings. However, on higher value and/or more complex tenders, we recommend our involvement in internal ‘Red Team’ review meetings, as part of ensuring that the project is on track and that all critical elements are covered.

For Bidding Health Checks, typically we review 2 or 3 past RFPs or tenders, to provide a representative spread of the client’s bids. These are assessed against our 7C’s Bid Performance Model^TM, and areas for improvement identified. A written report and/or presentation is provided to the client setting out our findings and recommendations.

For Bid Coaching, we tailor the design and content of our workshops to meet the specific needs of our clients. Most workshops are half day events, delivered at the client’s premises, and are highly interactive in nature, with plentiful opportunities for clients to raise questions and explore the issues that matter to them, in a confidential, small group setting.