It’s that simple. Yet, APMP reports that process satisfaction has dropped from 60% to 39% over the last year. Join us as we delve into the proposal management process and explore tips and best practices for boosting its efficiency and effectiveness for your business.
Proposals. The mere mention of the word induces a collective groan from E&R and construction to IT and government contracting offices alike. That’s because they are seen as time-consuming administrative burdens that drain the energy and expertise out of subject matter experts. Why?
Proposals are essentially a formal sales pitch, a document that promises to solve a client’s specific need. Here's the problem. Proposals are often treated as nothing more than a transactional exercise and a document production task. This is what makes them so frustrating. Despite this perception, there are still endless revisions, right deadlines, and the understanding that all of this hard work might not pay off in the end.
In our experience, top frustrations include situations that consume more than their fair share of the proposal development timeline:
The good news is, that with the right proposal management process these problems tend to go away.
By centralizing control and establishing clear guidelines, businesses transform proposal development from a chaotic scramble to a strategic, scalable operation. This standardized and consistent proposal management process optimizes proposal development efficiency and quality. A dedicated proposal manager is the cornerstone of this process, serving as the central point of contact and process driver. This role ensures cohesion across the team and a bird's-eye view of the proposal lifecycle progress.
The process is typically broken down into five key stages:
Throughout the development process, the proposal manager also monitors progress and status, as well as the management of amendments that change or add to the existing RFP or Tender.
Read on for a breakdown of each stage, including tips for optimizing each activity.
Proposal planning is about more than just organizing tasks and resources. It’s about strategically positioning your team to win. Proposal or project managers who are proactive, working with sales and capture to understand the nuances of the bid before the RFP or Tender is issued significantly increase their chances of success. This typically involves two states of planning, pre-RFP/Tender and RFP/Tender analysis.
The days of waiting for an RFP to drop and then scrambling to respond are over. Successful businesses are those who anticipate opportunities, build relationships with potential clients, and are ready to hit the ground running when the RFP or Tender is released.
This is known as capture management, or the process of building relationships, gathering information, and developing strategies that position your business for the win. For example, gathering intel on the client and the competition, performing a gap analysis, and developing a win strategy, including win themes and discriminators.
At this point, it is important to understand the role each team plays, and how they work together:
While every business is different, it’s the capture and flow of information that is key during this stage. In other words, don’t wait for the RFP or Tender to drop. Insert yourself into the sales and capture process and start and start outlining client-specific themes and competitor strengths and weaknesses. You’ll need all of these details to write a proposal that resonates with the client.
Once the RFP or Tender lands on your desk, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. By taking a strategic approach to analyzing and planning, you can break this process down into more manageable parts:
Crafting a winning proposal is a team sport. It requires a diverse set of skills, from strategic thinking and solution knowledge to exceptional writing and design. Success hinges on effective collaboration, clear communication, and a seamless exchange of information.
This involves a delicate balance of strategy, collaboration, and precision.
It's important to remember that not everyone on the team is a born writer. If you’re lucky, you’ll deploy a mix of solution experts as well as writing experts. By leveraging the strengths of the entire team and providing the necessary tools, organizations can produce exceptional proposals that stand out.
Just as a sports team relies on a playbook, proposal teams rely on a consistent process and pre-written content. This foundation, including common components and content frameworks, not only accelerates the writing process but also ensures consistency across the proposal.
Core Proposal Writing Concepts:
Proposal review is an iterative process that involves multiple stakeholders and perspectives. It's more than simply proofreading; it's an opportunity to critically evaluate and improve your proposal's strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact. By simulating the client’s evaluation process, teams identify areas for improvement and develop a clear roadmap for revisions.
Two industry standard review methods include:
Whichever your approach, Shipley, Agile, or a home-grown combination of the two, conduct rigorous, productive reviews by focusing on:
When done well, proposal reviews provide a valuable deliverable; a clear roadmap to improving proposal quality and how to get there.
A quality proposal:
Monitoring for Progress
Throughout proposal development, the proposal or project manager is the conductor of an expert orchestra, ensuring every expert instrument plays in harmony to create a “perfect” proposal symphony. To maintain this rhythm, they meticulously monitor the proposal development process. By tracking task progress, they identify bottlenecks and adjust timelines and reallocate resources to avoid delays. In this manner, the manager acts as a vigilant guardian of the project timeline.
Based on the review roadmap, revisions, or improvements, are another iterative part of the proposal development process. With each iterative review, the team’s focus should be on transforming a dry, somewhat stilted proposal into a quality proposal client’s want to read, understand, select, and defend.
By enhancing readability, sharpening the value proposition, and aligning the content with evaluation criteria, teams can significantly improve their chances of success.
A proven technique for editing to improve your proposal quality involves these steps:
Teams who repeat reviews and edits at regular intervals throughout the proposal development process submit higher quality proposals. For example, Shipley recommends a Pink Team review to verify compliance and win strategy execution and a Red Team review to predict how the proposal will be scored.
Monitoring for Amendments
Amendments happen. The larger the procurement, the more potential for amendments. They can range from modifying existing requirements or altering timelines, to introducing new requirements.
Designating a specific resource responsible for monitoring and communicating amendments is critical. So is a consistent process for analyzing amendments and incorporating their changes into the proposal outline and compliance matrix. Centralize access to the amendments and their analysis and be sure to communicate clearly with all stakeholders, including internal teams, subcontractors and partners.
Proposal production is the step in your process where you finalize and package your proposal for submission. Sometimes that means a digital submission via email or portal. Other times that means printing copies of the proposal and delivering it to the tendering authority.
This stage of the process requires meticulous planning and execution. Allocating sufficient time for these critical steps is essential to avoid last-minute scrambles, errors, or worse, missed deadlines.
Set clear expectations and establish standardized steps for success:
Capturing and analyzing lessons learned is a critical component of organizational growth and development. By systematically identifying what worked well and what didn't, teams can extract valuable insights that inform future projects and enhance overall performance. This iterative process not only prevents the repetition of mistakes but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement.
To extract maximum value from your process, adopt a systematic approach to learning and improvement. By carefully analyzing proposal wins and losses, lessons learned identify strengths, and weaknesses, and how to improve for the next proposal.
Talk with your team and score your efforts based on:
By continuously learning and adapting, organizations can enhance their proposal development process, increase win rates, and strengthen their market position.
Measuring the performance of your proposal management process is also crucial for optimizing results. They demonstrate concrete evidence of the proposal team’s contributions to organizational success. They help pinpoint underperforming areas and justify additional resources and tools. And provide a factual basis for building your case for process change.
Key metrics fall into three primary categories:
A well-oiled proposal process is essential for success, but even the best systems require periodic review and updates. Here are some indicators that it might be time to revisit your proposal management process:
Implementing robust proposal process best practices is essential for driving efficiency, improving quality, and increasing win rates. By adhering to proven methodologies, organizations can streamline operations, reduce errors, and enhance their competitive edge.
Proposal management process best practices are derived from a combination of industry experience, research, and successful proposal outcomes. Whether you serve the E&R, Construction, Government, or IT industry, proposal best practices serve as a foundation for consistent, high-performing proposal teams.
By following best practices such as these, you reap higher rewards from your proposal management process:
Implementing best practices requires a strategic approach and commitment from all team members. Work together to identify and prioritize best practices, and ensure they align with your organizational goals and challenges. Define a clear implementation plan, including steps, timelines, and responsibilities, communicate the benefits, and provide training and support. Test pilot the changes, encourage feedback, and measure their impact. When you foster a culture of continuous improvement, you create an environment where learning and improvement are valued.
Time is money, and an effective proposal management process saves both. By establishing the right steps and responsibilities you significantly improve your efficiency, and your chances of winning.
Remember, a proposal is a sales document, and a well-structured proposal management process is the backbone of every successful sale.