Our Bid Review Service maximises the true value of our bid consultancy. It is our experience of 'what a winning bid looks like', which can quickly ramp-up the quality of your tender submissions
What does it involve? We review your draft quality tender responses, prior to submission and provide advice and improvements to maximise the score it will receive.
Why have a bid review? If you are not happy with the quality scores you are achieving, a bid review is a chance to let an external expert in bidding and procurement challenge your bid. For a live tender, you of course also benefit from improving your quality scores and therefore your chances of success. You further benefit from your team being up-skilled on bid writing best practice, which they can apply to future bids.
Our approach to bid reviews not only enhances the quality of your bids, aligns them closely with the evaluation criteria, significantly boosting your chances of success, but it can also act as a bid training tool for your team.
Throughout this article, we will explore the key components of a successful bid review, offering a step-by-step guide on conducting a thorough evaluation of your own bids.
Bid Review Options
At Thornton & Lowe, we provide a range of bid review options tailored to your specific needs and timelines. Whether you need a comprehensive overhaul or targeted feedback, we are here to help. Our bid review, and bid writing services are customised to meet our clients' unique requirements, so feel free to discuss any special needs with us.
Bid Review & Improve
Share your drafted bid responses or specific tender questions along with your available timescales. We'll provide a quote to use your draft as a starting point. Our bid writing consultants will refine your draft, gather additional information, and deliver an enhanced tender response. We discuss our changes and explain the rationale behind each improvement.
This service can lower your bid writing costs as your initial work saves our bid writers time.
Bid Review & Comment
We review your draft bid response against the specification, client requirements, best practices, and our extensive bid writing experience. Our detailed comments address compliance, added value, formatting, structure, accuracy, design, and win themes. Using tracked changes, we provide guidance and suggestions for improvement along with a summary report of recommendations. During a meeting, we explain our comments and offer practical solutions to make the necessary changes before the tender deadline.
This option is cost-effective and leverages your in-house bid writing capacity, focusing on adding value through expert feedback.
If you are working on a tender which you would like to be reviewed, then please contact us. Hello@thorntonandlowe.com or 01204 238046.
In an ideal world, we will engage with you before you complete your drafts, so we can understand your approach, position and any context which will help our bid review provide comments which can be actioned.
If we are providing a bid review and comment service, for small tenders we can often turn this around within the day, especially if it is urgent. However, it is important to consider you then need to have time to make those changes and improvements which we suggest.
If we are completing a bid review and improvement exercise, this requires more time and typically we would need your drafts a week before submission. This involves us taking your drafts, speaking to your team, collecting any further insight and information and redeveloping the tender responses. We then share these with you. You can then review our changes and we will return a 3rd but final draft ready for submission.
Bid Review Process
Quality and Social Value Responses within our Bid Review
When you're bidding for contracts, especially in the public sector, highlighting both quality and social value is essential. When we refer to quality, it is both with regards to the solution and the quality responses required in the ITT. This solution needs to focus on value for money, which is the balance of your price, level of delivery and wider impact on the community and social value it creates.
Aligning to Requirements and Buyer’s Approach
Start by understanding what the buyer wants. Go through the procurement documents thoroughly. Look for their social value priorities and make sure your bid reflects these. If sustainability is important to them, emphasise your company's environmental initiatives.
Tailor your responses. Don't just copy-paste generic answers. Use relevant metrics that align with what the buyer is looking for.
Recording Social Value from Previous Projects
Showcase your past achievements. Include detailed examples of projects where you delivered social value. Use numbers and data to back up your claims. If you helped the community or improved the environment, provide statistics to show the impact.
If you have third-party endorsements or verifications, include them. This adds credibility to your claims.
Making Quantifiable Commitments
Set clear and measurable objectives. For example, if you commit to hiring locally, specify how many jobs you'll create.
Outline a delivery plan. Explain how you will meet these commitments, including timelines and resource allocations. Address potential risks and how you plan to manage them.
Delivering and Reporting on Social Value
Detail your implementation strategy. Explain how you will integrate social value initiatives into the project. Assign roles and responsibilities within your team.
Describe how you will monitor progress and report outcomes. Transparency and accountability are key here.
Example Social Value Response Structure
Introduction: Briefly introduce your company's commitment to social value and how it aligns with the buyer's goals.
Past Achievements: Highlight past projects with quantifiable social value outcomes.
Commitments: Clearly state your social value commitments, including targets and timelines.
Delivery Plan: Provide a detailed plan for delivering these commitments.
Monitoring and Reporting: Explain how you will track progress and report outcomes.
TOMS is the acceptable measurement tool for social value.
Key Components of a Successful Bid Review
In our bid review service, we focus on several pivotal components that ensure the refinement and effectiveness of your submissions. By adhering to these principles, we significantly enhance your chances of winning bids.
Compliance Checks
The cornerstone of a successful bid review is ensuring compliance with all client requirements. This includes a verification against the specification, selection questionnaire and tender requirements. We use a compliance checklist to track each requirement, ensuring nothing is overlooked. This systematic approach not only meets but often exceeds client expectations, preventing any potential disqualification due to non-compliance.
Answering All Questions
Our bid reviews are completed by proven members of our bid writing team. These quality reviewers ensure that every part of the client's questions are answered fully and in context. It's not just about responding but making sure that the answers are structured in a way that directly addresses the specifics of the question. This thoroughness in responding precisely to what has been asked significantly boosts the evaluation score of your bid.
Logical and Clear Structure
We structure each response to ensure clarity and ease of understanding, which is crucial for the evaluators. Responses are organised with clear headings and logical subheadings that reflect the question order, making it straightforward for evaluators to find and assess the information. This methodical structuring is vital in presenting a coherent and professional proposal - often known as storyboarding.
Win Themes and Added Value
Bidding is of course competitive. You are competing in who can best respond to the tender. This includes meeting or exceeding the requirements, working to the evaluation criteria and marking scheme.
It can't be seen as a tick box exercise. To maximise your scores if you fully understand the pain points of your potential customer, align them to your strengths, which you know exceed that of your competitor, you start developing some really powerful reasons why your business should be successful. These are win themes.
Use of Supporting Documents
Supporting documents or supporting evidence, bid collateral should be seen as an opportunity to add more value, to further meet the evaluation criteria and improve the buyers confidence in your business and solution. Within our bid review service we assess the quality of the supporting documents, as well as proposing other types of evidence which could also be used.
A Business Built Around Bidding Solutions
Since 2009 we have helped suppliers bid for tenders. A key element of our bid writing services have been our bid reviews.
How Bid Reviews Improve Your Chances of Winning
Identifying Weaknesses
A meticulous bid review process is instrumental in pinpointing areas that may undermine the effectiveness of your bid. By thoroughly assessing each response, we ensure that no aspect of the bid is left ambiguous or lacking in detail. This scrutiny extends to evaluating the relevance and impact of the evidence provided, ensuring it aligns with the buyer's expectations and the specific requirements of the tender. Identifying these weaknesses not only allows for immediate rectification but also aids in refining future bids, thereby enhancing your overall bid strategy and success rate.
Ensuring Professionalism
The professionalism of your bid is paramount in making a positive impression on potential clients. Our bid review service includes a rigorous proofreading stage to eliminate any grammatical errors or inconsistencies, which could otherwise detract from the professionalism of your submission. Additionally, we focus on the formatting and presentation of the bid, ensuring that it is not only error-free but also aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. This attention to detail reflects your company’s dedication to quality and excellence, significantly boosting your credibility and competitive edge.
Enhancing Persuasiveness
To convert interest into awards, your bid must be compelling. Our approach involves tailoring responses to echo the client’s specific needs and values, thereby enhancing the persuasiveness of your bid. We integrate bespoke, well-articulated arguments that highlight your unique selling points and demonstrate how your services can exceed the client's expectations. Furthermore, by incorporating robust, varied evidence such as case studies and testimonials, we ensure that your claims are substantiated, making your bid not only persuasive but also credible. This strategic articulation helps in clearly conveying the added value your business can provide, thereby maximising the impact of your submission.
Bid Reviews are Essential Whether Completed In-House or External
Bid reviews are so important when it comes to driving continuous improvement and sense checking the quality of the wider bid writing, your solution and approach to bid planning.
The better the tender management, bidding systems and bid writing is, the more the bid review can focus on adding value and win themes! Bid reviews are an important part of the bid writing process.
See our ultimate guide to bid writing or our free training video, 'how to win your next bid', which covers bid reviews in the 'checking your work' section. This starts at the 20 minute 50 seconds point in the video, if you want to focus entirely on bid reviews.
Bid Review - FAQs
What does a bid review entail? A bid review is conducted by an experienced Bid Manager or Senior Bid Writer. It is a desktop exercise in which we evaluate your draft bid submission. The purpose of the bid review service is to improve the quality of your tender response. Once we have completed our review we take your team through this explaining the key improvement areas we have identified.
Why is it crucial to evaluate bids? Bid evaluation is essential to identify the most cost-effective and responsive bid from among those that are substantially responsive. This requires a systematic and logical evaluation process to ensure the selection is fair and just.
What constitutes added value in a tender? Added value in a tender should be something tangible, demonstrable, and measurable. Common examples include demonstrating cost savings, providing better value for money, or introducing service innovations that can be quantified. It is going beyond their requirements and making it very clear you have done so!
What does reviewing bids involve? Reviewing bids involves a thorough and objective analysis from a new, impartial perspective, typically that of a potential customer. A well-conducted bid review can transform an average, potentially unsuccessful bid into a strong contender or even a likely winner by providing critical insights and recommendations.
What does a bid review cost? We have several bid review options, but our prices start from £450. We can often add value very quickly.
