| The team members are in place, many of
whom will have been pillaged from
other projects and you need to
set them to work. The first priority
when managing a bid is to have
the customer's bid documentation
reviewed. No one person is an
expert on all aspects, which is
why you have a team comprising
members from all different disciplines
and that is how you divide up
the paperwork. The technical specification
will be reviewed by your technical
expert, the contractual terms
and conditions by the Commercial
Manager and so on. You will need
to set a timescale for this, and
all other, activities because
invariably, bid periods are far
too short for the amount of work
that needs to be done. A few days
should be sufficient for your
team of experts to come up with
an answer to those burning questions
"Do we want this job?" and "Are
we capable of doing this job?"
Yes, believe it or not, just because
your favourite customer has invited
you to tender for a project, you
don't actually have to accept
his invitation so the very first
team decision is the Bid/No Bid.
You should, as a company, have
a procedure in place which lays
out guidelines for making this
decision and some of the questions
you will have to answer will be
as follows: - Is this the company's
core business? - If it's not core
business, do we want to get into
this area? - Can we respond to
the Invitation to Tender (ITT)
in the required timescale with
a feasible bid? - Do we have the
resources to bid and carry out
the project, if won There will
be more questions that this but
these are the major ones that
senior management will need to
be answered in order for your
bid/no bid decision to be approved.
The first two questions will require
the input particularly of your
Marketing Manager. This person
will, if he's done his job properly,
have found out from your customer
where a favourable response to
this bid could lead. Bidding for
a low value pilot project may
not seem much in itself but if
a successful bid leads to a full
development contract, followed
by several phases of production
or implementation, then that is
a different matter. Your Marketing
Manager will know how this project
relates to others coming along,
he will know about the politics
surrounding this bid, your customer's
expectations, the general feel
in the marketplace and the probable
competition. He will be able to
work out, to a degree, the likelihood
of your winning this bid, taking
into account the opposition and
all sorts of other factors. In
general, it will be the Marketing
Manager who leads the presentation
of the bid/no bid decision to
your board of directors, showing
anything that may have an affect
on the outcome of the bid. In
the next article, we will discuss
the management of the bid. -------------------------------------------------------
Michael Russell Your Independent
guide to Project Management -------------------------------------------------------
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