Five Top Tips To Write A Winning Tender Submission

This informal CPD article, ‘Five Top Tips To Write A Winning Tender Submission’, was provided by Executive Compass, who provide bid management and bid writer services assisting owner-managed businesses, SMEs and large multi-national companies to win public and private sector contracts.

The public sector tender process is highly competitive and subject to a strict evaluation. With each bid, it is likely you are competing directly with dozens of other organisations. Tenders are typically evaluated on a split between quality and price, with the percentage split varying for each opportunity. Even framework agreements, which appoint multiple providers, typically award places to between three to five contractors.

As such, the majority of bids are lost over a handful of marks, underscoring the importance of effective, persuasive and targeted bid writing. Below, we share some top tips based on our own practices to facilitate a high-quality, winning bid.

Read the tender documents in full

Every tender is different, and so are the tender documents associated with the opportunity. To create a tailored and targeted tender submission, it is crucial you read all tender documents in full, making note of the following:

• Final deadline for submission in addition to any other relevant dates, such as site visits, interview panels and question-and-answer sessions
• Documents to be returned, such as quality responses, pricing schedule, selection questionnaire and form of tender
• Delivery elements of the specification, making note of KPIs, geographic area and any minimum numbers of staff
• Required appendices or additional documents – for example, a mobilisation plan, policies and procedures, or a carbon reduction plan.

If any element of the tender pack is unclear or has conflicting information, it is possible to submit a clarification with the authority to gain understanding. Typically, the clarification deadline closes one week before the tender submission – again, this will be outlined in the tender documents.

Plan before you begin writing the tender responses

Prompt planning and attention to detail is central to a winning tender. A haphazard approach to submitting a bid is unlikely to result in a high-quality submission – project management and preparation are key characteristics of a successful bid writer.

At the beginning of each tender exercise, create a project-specific bid plan, complete with timescales and relevant task owners. This will enable you to track your bid writer or bid team’s progress against the deadline, and proactively adjust to any slippage encountered – for example, an increase in word limits granted by the authority, or scheduling conflicts when gathering information from a subject matter expert.

Equally, answer planning quality responses will ensure nothing is missed or omitted within your tender response, attaining maximum marks from the evaluation committee. Prior to writing, break each question down into constituent parts to verify each element is addressed, making sure to include the what, how and why for each point you make. 

Strong bid planning can also aid in making a tender submission feel more manageable. particularly for complex or larger bids, breaking the project down into constituent parts and assigning different task owners and timescales to each element will ensure a more achievable project pipeline and workload.

Emphasise the benefits of your offering

Remember, tendering is a competition, and many of your competitors will have the same basic approaches to service delivery. By highlighting the benefits, key differentiators and unique selling points of your submission, this will allow your tender to stand out from other bidders.

Benefits must be directly relevant to the quality question. For instance, if there is a question about adhering to response times for emergency callouts, including a point around vehicles being equipped with telematics which provide the most optimal route to locations is a persuasive, impactful difference-maker. Equally, if you have previous experience delivering works or services to the authority, this would be relevant within a response requiring bidders to demonstrate their competency and capability.  

A tender is not the forum for marketing materials or ancillary, irrelevant content and ultimately you must answer the question. However, a skilled bid writer will be able to weave material from the above into quality responses, resulting in persuasive, impactful content.

Implement quality assurance measures

Even the most skilled and experienced bid writer will benefit from an additional pair of eyes. A suitably qualified member of the team, such as a contract manager or subject matter expert, should review all quality responses to ensure:

• All aspects of the question have been comprehensively addressed within the response, avoiding loss of marks due to oversight
• Tender responses are compliant with the specification, contract-specific KPIs and other documents within the tender pack
• Content is persuasive, impactful and evidence-based, incorporating those crucial benefits which can be the key differentiators to your submission
• Use of colour, images, tables and bullet points is deployed appropriately and where permitted, in accordance with tender guidance.

A bid review, sometimes known as a ‘critical friend’ review, will support a winning submission and gives the bid writer the opportunity to incorporate elements they may not have considered beforehand.

Equally, quality assurance at the submission stage is crucial to mitigating avoidable errors which may lead to a noncompliant or disqualified tender. Again, an impartial member of the team should check all submission documents for completion and accuracy, in addition to ensuring documents have been correctly uploaded to the portal.

To avoid any last-minute issues or rush to submit, this should take place no less than 24 hours prior to the final submission deadline.

Record and analyse feedback from submissions

Central to any business, driving continuous improvement relies on learning from previous outcomes and responding to feedback. This is also the case with your tender submission – in a highly competitive environment, feedback from results can quickly improve outcomes and allow you to win future contracts. Feedback will comprise:

• An individual score for each response, often provided in conjunction with other bidders to compare whether scores were largely uniform or varied across the board
• Top-level strengths and weaknesses of each response, with commentary on the response provided for the successful bidder(s)
• A full list of successful bidder organisations, allowing greater insight into your direct competitors and what type of organisations you will be competing against.

Public procurement regulations oblige authorities to give feedback to successful and unsuccessful bidders alike – meaning, regardless of the outcome, there will always be material to inform improvement.

We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Executive Compass, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.