Bid/No-Bid Decision Matrix (with Editable Template)

You know the pattern. A tender lands, everyone scrambles, operational staff are pulled off fee-earning work, evenings disappear, and four weeks later the result drops into the inbox.

Unsuccessful.

When you add up the time and salary cost of each bid, it is no surprise that teams are burning out and margins are under pressure. Industry research shows that a single RFP response can easily consume several dozen hours of specialist time, and that structured teams often spend even longer on complex bids. If those hours are invested in opportunities you were never likely to win, the real cost is eye watering.

The fastest way to fix this is with a sharper bid/no-bid decision. A simple, consistent way to decide where to focus and where to politely walk away. Get that right, and you immediately protect your team’s time, reduce arguments, and give every qualified submission a far better chance of winning. In this guide, we'll show you how to do just that.

At Thornton & Lowe, clients of our Bid Success Programme and Bid Mentor Service have access to our most advanced bid/no-bid tools. This guide provides a simpler decision matrix, with an editable template that you can download and start using today.

Why Your Bid/No-Bid Decision Matters More Than Perfect Writing

When bidding for a dynamic market, framework or tender, there are multiple factors that determine your success. Submitting a high-quality proposal is, of course, a must. However, if your pipeline is full of the wrong opportunities, then you could find yourself wasting valuable time and effort on prospects you were never likely to win.

Organisations with structured proposal processes and metrics can achieve win rates up to 21% higher than those without. A disciplined bid/no-bid decision is a core part of that structure. It keeps your limited capacity focused on tenders where you actually have a strong chance of success, instead of spreading effort thinly across every opportunity that appears.

Without a clear bid/no-bid process, you may recognise some of these symptoms:

• Win rates stuck at a level that feels uncomfortably low, despite huge effort.

• Senior people dragged into last minute contributions, because “we have already started now”.

• Bids accepted because they look attractive on paper, not because you can genuinely win.

• Post-mortems that focus on document polishing, rather than whether you should have bid in the first place.

This is not just about efficiency. A robust bid/no-bid decision matrix gives your team permission to say “no” when an opportunity does not fit. That protects fee-earning time, improves morale, and creates the headroom you need to produce outstanding submissions for the right opportunities.

When you combine a strong qualification framework with expert bid writing services, you shift from “busy bidding” to a targeted strategy that consistently converts the right work. Firms that are selective and process-driven concentrate their efforts on winnable opportunities, and see higher win rates and better use of resources as a result.

Typical Pain Points That Signal a Broken Bid/No-Bid Process

If you recognise any of these, it is a sign your bid/no-bid decision is happening on gut feel, not on clear criteria.

"We spend weeks on tenders that go nowhere."

Most teams underestimate how much a single tender really costs. Studies suggest that firms spend around 24 to 30 hours actually writing each RFP response, often involving seven to nine contributors. Once you add meetings, site visits and reviews, a “maybe” opportunity can easily require several weeks of dispersed effort.

If that effort is going into low-probability bids, the impact is brutal. Other priorities stall, delivery teams get stretched, and the bids that genuinely matter do not get the thinking time they deserve. A strong bid/no-bid decision matrix protects your pipeline from these slow, quiet drains on margin.

"Directors and managers are pulled off fee-earning work for bids that we probably should not have touched."

When a tender looks attractive, it is tempting to “just go for it” and hope the detail will sort itself out. The result is predictable. Senior people are dragged into clarifications, pricing sessions and last-minute drafting, often at the exact moment they should be focused on live projects or client work.

This is not simply inconvenient. It is a direct hit on revenue and client relationships. A clear, agreed set of criteria at the start means leaders only step into bids where the opportunity justifies that investment of their time.

Over time, that discipline creates a healthier rhythm. Leaders spend less time firefighting and more time shaping the right opportunities, coaching the team and helping them understand the tendering process from the buyer’s point of view.

"We do not really know why we win some and lose others."

If you feel unsure why a submission succeeded or failed, it usually means the opportunity was never assessed in a structured way. Decisions to proceed were based on enthusiasm, pressure or assumptions, rather than a documented view of:

• How well the opportunity fits your strategy.

• Whether you truly have the capability, experience and capacity.

• How strong your position is compared with the competition.

• What insight you have into the client’s drivers.

Without that, it is impossible to build a reliable picture over time. A good bid/no-bid decision matrix captures these factors up front. When you later compare scores to actual outcomes, patterns emerge. You start to see which criteria really predict success, and which are less important than they felt at the time.

That is also where deeper work to understand client needs pays off. The more real insight you have before the specification lands, the more confident you can be that a high score in your matrix reflects a genuine chance of winning.

"Every time a tender lands, we argue about whether to go for it."

Endless internal debates are a symptom of missing rules of the game. Sales want to chase growth. Operations worry about delivery risk. Finance worries about margin. Everyone brings a different view, and the loudest voice often wins.

A structured bid/no-bid decision matrix gives you a neutral reference point. Instead of replaying the same arguments for every opportunity, the team scores a set of agreed criteria, reviews the evidence and makes a decision that is visible and repeatable.

Disagreements do not disappear, but they become more productive. You are no longer arguing in the abstract. You are asking practical questions like “What would have to change in this opportunity for it to reach our minimum score?” or “Do we have new information that justifies overriding the matrix?”

In the next section, we will look at what a good bid/no-bid decision matrix actually includes, and how to build one that your whole team will use.

What a Good Bid/No-Bid Decision Matrix Looks Like

A strong bid/no-bid decision matrix is not a complicated spreadsheet that only one person understands. It is a simple, shared tool that helps you make faster, better decisions every time a new opportunity lands. With our editable template, you can have a working version in place quickly.

At its core, your matrix should:

• Capture the key factors that really drive a successful outcome for you.

• Score each opportunity against those factors in a consistent way.

• Give a clear recommendation on whether to proceed or walk away.

• Be quick enough to complete in minutes, not hours.

Think of it as a structured go or no-go decision for bids. You are taking what is often an emotional debate and turning it into a clear, evidence-based bid/no-bid decision that your leadership team can stand behind.

High-performing organisations use similar qualification scorecards in their proposal processes to focus effort on winnable opportunities and protect their time from low-value work. When you combine that discipline with a clear bid/no-bid process, your pipeline becomes more predictable and far less stressful.

A good matrix is:

• Visible: everyone involved in bidding knows it and uses it.

• Tailored: it reflects your markets, services and risk appetite.

• Balanced: it weighs client, capability, commercial and winnability factors.

• Decisive: it does not sit on the fence. At a certain score, the answer is No Bid.

That is the foundation. Next, you need the right criteria inside the matrix.

Core Bid/No-Bid Criteria To Include In Your Matrix

Your bid/no-bid decision matrix works or fails on the quality of its criteria. Too vague and you are back to gut feel. Too detailed and no one has time to use it.

Below is a practical set of bid/no-bid criteria that we regularly see working for clients. You can adapt the wording, but the themes are universal.

Client and strategic fit

• Do we already work with this client, or have a warm relationship?
• Does this opportunity align with our strategic focus areas for the next 12 to 24 months?
• Is the contract size, location and duration right for us?

This is where your wider strategy and customer focus matter. Choosing the right customers to serve, and being explicit about which work to avoid, is a key driver of profitable growth. Your matrix translates that thinking into daily bid/no-bid decisions.

Capability, experience and capacity

• Can we clearly evidence relevant experience and case studies?
• Do we have the internal capacity to deliver this contract well?
• Do we have the technical skills and accreditations the specification expects?

If the honest answer to these questions is weak, a high score elsewhere should not automatically rescue the opportunity.

Commercials and risk

• Is the budget or target price realistic for sustainable delivery?
• Are there contractual terms that create unacceptable risk?
• Would this work distract from higher value clients or projects?

Here you can use a simple red, amber, green view. If a tender triggers too many commercial red flags, your bid/no-bid decision matrix should steer you towards No Bid unless there is a compelling strategic reason to continue.

Winnability and insight

• Do we understand what the client really values, beyond the written specification?
• Have we had pre-market engagement, or are we responding cold?
• Who are the likely competitors and how do we compare?
• Is there an incumbent, and what is the realistic chance of displacing them?

Strong qualification processes focus heavily on insight, competition and relationship, not just compliance. Your bid/no-bid decision matrix should do the same.

You can then set:

• Weightings, to reflect which criteria matter most to you.
• Minimum thresholds, below which the answer defaults to No Bid.
• Automatic red flags, where any single issue can block a bid.

This turns your bid/no-bid decision from a subjective conversation into a practical tool your team can trust.

How To Use a Bid/No-Bid Decision Matrix In Practice

A bid/no-bid decision matrix only delivers value if it is actually used. The process around it is just as important as the template itself.

Here is a simple, repeatable bid/no-bid process you can adopt.

1. Use the matrix as soon as the opportunity appears
   As soon as a notice, specification or framework call-off arrives, the first step is not to forward it to everyone. It is to complete the matrix.
2. Nominate an owner for the assessment
   Typically this will be the person who owns business development or tenders. They gather initial information, complete the bid/no-bid decision matrix and share a draft recommendation.
3. Review with a small decision group
   A short meeting with sales, operations and finance reviews the scores, challenges assumptions and confirms the recommendation. If necessary, they agree what extra information is needed.
4. Make and record the decision
   At this point, you lock in a Bid or No-Bid decision and record the scores. If you decide to bid, this is where resources are committed and your planning starts.
5. Escalate only by exception
   If someone wants to override the recommendation, they should bring clear reasons. This keeps exceptions rare and focused on truly strategic opportunities.

This workflow keeps you out of the trap where everyone starts writing before anyone has paused to ask whether the bid is winnable. When the decision is a clear Bid, that is the moment to involve our specialist bid writing services to build a compelling, compliant and persuasive response while your team focus on operational insight.

Used consistently, this type of process mirrors best practice go or no-go frameworks in B2B sales and bidding, where robust qualification leads to higher close rates and better use of scarce capacity.

Using Data To Refine Your Bid/No-Bid Criteria Over Time

The first version of your bid/no-bid decision matrix may not be perfect. The real power comes from using data to refine it. Once you have been scoring opportunities for a few months, you can start to:

• Compare average scores for won and lost bids.

• Identify criteria where high scores consistently correlate with wins.

• Spot red flags that often appear in lost opportunities.

• See whether teams are overriding No Bid recommendations, and what happens when they do.

Tracking your win rate and linking it to qualification decisions is one of the most effective ways to improve performance over time. A basic report that shows bid/no-bid scores against outcomes will quickly highlight where your matrix is working and where it needs tuning.

You might decide to:

• Increase the weighting on client relationship and insight.

• Decrease the weighting on less predictive factors.

• Tighten your minimum score for certain frameworks or high risk work.

Over time, your bid/no-bid decision matrix becomes a live tool, not a static document. It reflects how you actually win work, rather than how you think you win work.

Expert Support To Improve Your Bid Decisions And Delivery

A strong bid/no-bid decision matrix is one part of the picture. To get the full benefit, you need aligned strategy, capable writers and confident subject matter experts.

That is where we help.

• Our specialist bid writing services support you once the decision is a clear Bid, freeing operational teams to focus on delivery while we handle structure, compliance and persuasive narrative.

• Our Bid Success Programme is designed to improve your entire bid lifecycle, from opportunity qualification and pipeline planning through to submission and review. It is a structured way to embed a consistent bid/no bid decision process across your organisation.

• Our practical bid writing training gives your teams the tools and confidence to contribute effectively to bids without losing weeks of productive time.

• Clients in our Bid Mentor Service and Bid Success Programme gain access to a more advanced bid/no bid tool and hands on support to apply it.

We also help clients to understand the tendering process from the buyer’s perspective and to understand client needs long before the specification is published. That insight feeds directly into stronger qualification, sharper bid no bid decisions and higher win rates.

The result is a calmer, more controlled bid pipeline. Fewer firefights. More focused effort on the opportunities that genuinely move the needle.

Start Making Better-Informed Decisions

If you are tired of spending weeks on tenders that go nowhere, the next step is not another internal debate about “why we lost”. It is to implement a clear decision making process that your team actually uses.

To get started:

1. Download our template today to use as an example.

2. List the criteria that really decide whether you win or lose.

3. Tailor the template to meet your needs, agreeing on weightings and minimum scores.

4. Use it on every new opportunity for the next few months.

5. Track scores against outcomes and refine the criteria.

If you want to move faster, arrange a conversation with our team to review your current decision-making process and identify quick wins. You can also learn more about how our bid writing services, Bid Success Programme and bid writing training can help you protect fee-earning time, reduce stress and improve win rate.

If you want the more advanced version of the bid/no bid tool we use with clients, get in touch about the Bid Mentor Service or Bid Success Programme and we can walk you through how it would work for you.

A stronger bid/no-bid decision is one of the quickest levers you can pull to stop wasting effort and start winning the right work more consistently. You do not need to chase every tender. You just need a clear, confident way to choose.