Proposal Management Software: Business Critical

Proposal management software offers best practice solutions to common proposal team collaboration and writing challenges. Such as manual tasks, expert collaboration bottlenecks, and progress visibility, just to name a few, that consume precious time.   

In fact, APMP reports that teams using software respond to more RFPs, improve their content storage, and experience more manageable stress levels. 

This blog shares the benefits of proposal management software, as well as when to buy and tips for choosing the best option.

What is Proposal Management Software?

Today’s modern proposal management software is a web-based application for developing, managing, and tracking RFP responses. It helps organizations overcome subject matter expert and process bottlenecks to save time and money by eliminating manual, redundant efforts and miscommunication. By reclaiming valuable time, teams invest more time into strategy and creating professional, quality content.

There are, of course, different types of proposal management software, each with its own focus and job to do:

• Document Management Software: A general-purpose software, designed to store, organize, and manage documents. While it can be used for proposals, its feature set does not typically include the proposal-specific management tools professionals look for to successfully manage the team and proposal creation process.  
• Proposal Management Software built for small to medium sized bids: Although specifically designed for proposals, this software focuses more on repurposing content for recurring bid opportunities. As opposed to building proposals with unique content for more complex solutions.
• Proposal Management Software built for large, complex documents: Designed for large, complex teams and professional proposals, this software extends beyond the capabilities offered for smaller opportunities. This includes large documents, extensive document sets, document and team collaboration security as well as proposal tools, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) integration and scalability.

Common Proposal Challenges

Before diving into how proposal management software can address let’s explore some of the most common issues businesses face when creating and managing proposals:

• Manual Processes: Relying on manual tasks like “slicing and dicing” documents to assign tasks, emailing copies, version control errors, and reformatting is time-consuming and prone to error.
• Lack of Collaboration: Ensuring all contributors are aligned and working together is difficult, especially on large, complex documents via email. 
• Searching for Content: Trying to find what you wrote before, or something to start with, is time-consuming and frustrating, often leading to recreating the wheel.
• Limited Visibility: Difficulty tracking proposal progress and status and identifying bottlenecks before they become delays hinders decision-making.
• Data Security: Protecting sensitive and confidential information is crucial, especially for regulated industries. 
• Costs: The more time and money you spend on redundant tasks, the less you can invest in winning quality and other opportunities.

Key Benefits of Proposal Management Software

New business. New solutions. More proposals. You and your team of experts have a lot of work on your plates to keep that sales pipeline flowing in your favor. 

In fact, according to APMP, proposal teams drive approximately 30 - 40% of sales revenue. 

How does proposal management software help you save time for more? While meeting the mandate to do more with less? 

Here’s how:

• Automate Manual Tasks: Eliminate repetitive, redundant tasks, such as process hand-offs, version control, content searching, and formatting.  
• Connect Experts: Eliminate bottlenecks due to siloed experts and clunky expert and content hand-offs.
• Progress and Status Visibility: Eliminate the unknown, such as who is working, what are they working on, and are they done. 
• Agile Processes: Reclaim writing and submission time by skipping “pens down” and review reformatting. . 
• Real-time Collaboration: Eliminate misinformation and misunderstandings, and missed conversations, tasks and deadlines, and feedback due to email interactions.
• Scale for Growth: Eliminate the time-consuming activities that limit what your staff can do in a given timeframe.  

How to Know it’s Time for Proposal Software Solutions

If you’re reading this blog, then you have questions. For example, does it have to be this way? All manpower, grit and late nights?

No. If you're finding that your current proposal process is time-consuming, error-prone, or inefficient, it might be time to consider proposal management software. 

Here are some key indicators that your business could benefit from such a tool:

• Time spent searching for information, instead of tailoring content for the client.
• Time spent figuring out tasks and deadlines, instead of writing content.  
• Time spent reformatting, instead of improving readability and understanding. 
• Time spent clarifying review feedback, instead of improving your evaluation score.  
• Time spent fixing accuracy and inconsistency, instead of improving credibility.
• Time spent in last-minute submission scrambles, instead of compliance checks.  

The Cost of Inaction

You want to bid more and win more. You want to increase efficiency and productivity and leave fewer opportunities on the table. All with your existing team. Yet, you’re worried about the impacts of onboarding proposal management software and what you get for your return on investment.

In other words, the cost of investing in proposal management software must be lower than the impact of investing In proposal management software.   

When you read between the lines, however, you’ll find a significant hidden cost – the cost of doing nothing. Also known as the Cost of Inaction (COI). For your business, the cost of inaction equals the money you lose by continuing with the status quo. While your competition evolves their tactics and improves their operational efficiency with new technology such as proposal management software. 

• Imagine the Standard Desktop Publishing Tool: Every large, complex proposal involves the same time-consuming process. Experts spend time searching for content. Executives waste time pointing out missing content. You waste time reformatting every word. No one is investing time in winning content.  
• As This Process Repeats Itself: This manual, time-consuming process delivers the same results. Time spent on tasks instead of invested in winning quality content. As a result, client’s find your proposal difficult to read and understand. When you don’t win, no one is really surprised. 
• Fast Forward Five Years: How many man-hours have you spent, and how many experts and proposal professionals have you churned through, by continuing your status quo process? How many opportunities have you missed or lost because you didn’t have the time to invest in bidding and standing out from your competition? 

Sure, sticking with the status quo is easy, and delays investment. But missed opportunities add up quickly to millions in lost revenue - revenue you are choosing to hand to your competition by not taking action now. 

Tips for Choosing the Right Proposal Management Software

Proposal management software is a useful tool for businesses of all sizes. It helps them create, manage, and track proposals easily. By streamlining the proposal process, this software can help improve efficiency, collaboration, and overall proposal success rates.

Consider these factors. They will help you select the right proposal management software for your organization.

Your Specific Needs: 

Determine if the software can handle the size and complexity of your proposals. Consider content library and layout template benefits. Determine if it can support the number of experts and contributors required. Consider their needs, specifically ease of interaction.  

Key Features:

Look for secure, real-time collaboration, including co-authoring, in-document conversations and process hand-off workflow. Consider how easy it is to navigate for occasional users. Look for team and content visibility, including tasks and deadlines and status and progress visualization. Consider your need for tracking and auditability features.

Ease of Use:

Choose software with an intuitive interface that is user friendly, easy-to-learn and easy-to use for your team. Can the occasional users be productive? Choose software with tailored proposal templates for launching new proposal workspaces as well as enforcing formatting and branding. Consider multiple based on your business.

Scalability:

Ensure the software can accommodate your business’s growth plans and corresponding increase in proposal volume. Consider other use cases, such as RFIs, RFQs, DDQs, SOWs, contracts, etc. Ensure the software can integrate with other business software, such as Client Relationship Management (CRM) and Configure-Price-Quote (CRM).

Expandable: 

Understand any limits of the software’s use. For example, can the software be leveraged for other types of document development? Understand scenarios for expanding and leveraging the software elsewhere in your organization. For example, marketing, sales teams, contracts, etc.

Vendor Reputation:

Read customer success stories and reviews to get a sense of the vendor’s reputation. Follow them on social media to see what their experts talk about. Learn about the quality of their customer success management and availability of their customer support. Consider uptimes.

Return on Investment

APMP reports most companies see a return on investment (ROI) in less than one year with RFP software. Xait client’s see cost-savings much sooner, oftentimes with a single business proposal win.

“Our mid-year ROI review confirmed we had achieved our goals by cutting time spent on proposals in half. This allowed us to respond to 65% more bids with the same level of resources.” - Christina Brickner, Director of Proposals and Business Development Systems, at Franklin Energy

Why do highly regulated businesses choose Xait? Why do 94% of clients reviewed agree we meet their requirements for efficiency? Because it’s designed for large, complex proposals with:

• Secure, Real-time Collaboration: Multiple users, including writers and reviewers, work together on the same document simultaneously, improving productivity. 
• Automated Processes: Task assignments, data entry, document hand-offs and layout and formatting are automated, improving communication and process efficiency. 
• AI-powered Content Library: As content is created, you automatically add to your content library and maintain with workflow. Search, find and insert relevant suggestions via context, not tagging, for faster reuse. 
• Progress and Status Visibility: Visualization dashboards guide contributors to tasks, including in-document review comments, while managers track progress. Track user activity down to the keystroke. 
• Security: Control how documents and sections are accessed and edited, ensuring only authorized individuals have necessary permissions. 
• Easy-of Use: User friendly interfaces make the software easy to learn, boosting adoption rates for a faster return on investment. 
• Agile Processes: Skip the pens down review by writing and reviewing in-parallel for continuous content feedback and improvements.  
• Scale for Growth: Eliminate the time-consuming activities that limit what you and your staff can do in a given timeframe. (And leverage anywhere collaboration and quality documents are a priority!)

Proposal management software is an invaluable tool for businesses that want to increase their chances of winning deals. By saving time and money, you can reduce costs while increasing quality and volume with your same staff. 

Remember, executives and sales leaders worry about boosting win rates, increasing revenue, and reducing client acquisition costs. That’s where you, and proposal management software, come in.