Understanding Scoring Methodology
Understanding scoring methodologies in bid management is the difference between winning and losing a tender; it's that simple!
If you are consistently coming 2nd or 3rd place, which is often more frustrating than coming last - a quick win can often be using the scoring methodology as a tool for success. Let it help you ramp up your bid performance.
By aligning your bids with detailed scoring criteria, you can significantly improve your chances of winning contracts. This guide will provide practical techniques to help you use scoring methodologies effectively and improve your bid writing scores.
How Will Your Bid Be Scored?
Procurement exercises use specific criteria to evaluate bids. Common criteria include quality, cost, delivery, and innovation. Each criterion is weighted differently, with some aspects of your bid carrying more importance than others. For instance, quality might be weighted more heavily than cost. Knowing how points are allocated allows you to focus on what matters most. This is detailed further below.
Detailed Scoring Methodology to Create a Bid Response Matrix
Start by thoroughly reading the tender documents. Identify key areas where points are awarded and understand the specific requirements. This helps ensure that your bid addresses all crucial points.
Create a bid response matrix that maps each requirement to your response. This keeps your bid structured and ensures all criteria are addressed. For example, if a criterion asks for evidence of past performance, ensure you provide detailed case studies and references.
Emphasise the aspects of your bid that align with high-scoring criteria. For example, if innovation is a key criterion, highlight unique solutions or technologies you bring to the project. Provide clear, concise, and compelling evidence to support your claims.
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Practical Tips for Using Scoring Methodologies
Training Your Team
Train your bid team to understand and use scoring methodologies. Provide resources and workshops to develop this skillset, for example, a training session on how to interpret tender documents and create effective bid response matrices. This will form part of your bid writing process and tool. This will form part of a storyboard or answer plan to keep the team focussed on what really matters.
Our bid writing courses can be bespoke, 1-2-1 or group based sessions. We will often review an example bid and use this as a starting point to create a bid training session which will have the biggest impact for your business. Within our in-house bid team at Thornton & Lowe, we have monthly CPD sessions to ensure we are continually improving and developing the quality of our bids.
Mock Evaluations
Conduct internal mock evaluations to test and refine bid responses. Use scoring exercises to identify and address potential weaknesses. For example, have your team draft a bid response and then score it as if they were the evaluators. Taking this approach as part of your bid reviews adds a lot of value and can often change the nature of the feedback by focusing efforts onto the scoring methodology.
Using Feedback to Improve
After submitting your bid, you will often receive feedback. This feedback highlights areas where you scored well and areas needing improvement. Analyse this feedback to understand where you gained or lost points. Look for patterns, such as consistently losing points on cost or delivery, and address these areas in future bids.
Use feedback to refine your bid writing process. For example, if feedback indicates your bids lack detail in project timelines, ensure future bids include comprehensive schedules and milestones. Continuous improvement based on feedback helps increase your chances of success. This is what we do with our clients to ensure each bid we work on is always better!
Tying a Tender Response to Scoring Criteria
You really need to ensure your answer plan or storyboard reminds and encourages the bid team or subject matter experts drafting the response to ensure their content is clearly tied to the scoring criteria. Let's make it for easy for a procurement panel to award those points using their scoring methodology.
Each tender response therefore needs to screams that it hits top marks! For example, based on this criteria for the highest points:
- Adds Value: Clear demonstration of additional benefits provided during mobilisation.
- Full Assurance of Delivery: Detailed plan showing comprehensive steps, resources, and timelines.
- Evidence-Based: Inclusion of past experiences, case studies, and measurable outcomes.
Your bid, and answer to each tender question, would include statements which mirror their scoring methodology language, such as:
- "Evidence of past delivery includes..."
- "Exceeding your specification and adding real value we..."
- "Offering full assurance of delivery based on..."
In practice adding value could include training programmes, technology integration and sustainability initiatives for example. Or simply identifying other likely important factors for them and offering more - improve service levels, evidenced with what you have achieved on similar contracts.
Providing confidence and assurance of your ability to meet the contract requirements can be provided through taking an authoritative writing style, which builds trust. This could include highly granular and specific details - step by step. This really shows you understand what is required which will resonate with those on the procurement panel. Timelines, risk plans and accurate resource allocation are all big players here.
Wherever possible evidence should be included. This could be case studies, screenshots, KPI dashboards, org charts, policies or simply evidencing your expertise by highlighting areas, which really add value! So you can how it is all tied together. When writing quality tender responses we follow this structure:
- Benefit - ensuring what is important to the customer is at the forefront
- Feature - providing the 'how' and the practical details
- Evidence - setting you apart from those who don't have any!
By structuring the response to clearly align with the scoring criteria, the procurement evaluation team can easily see how our approach meets and exceeds their expectations, ensuring a top-scoring response.
Understanding Competitors' Scores
Feedback can also provide insights into your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if competitors consistently score higher on innovation, look at how they present their solutions and adapt your approach. There is alway plenty online, their website and the sites or reports of their public sector clients, for example.
Refine your bidding approach based on competitor analysis. If competitors offer better pricing, consider ways to streamline your costs without compromising quality. Improve your pricing, quality, and innovation aspects to stay competitive.
Examples of Scoring Methodologies
Scoring methodologies vary across different tenders, but a common example is a 0 to 5 point scale, where each number reflects a level of fulfilment of the criteria:
Scoring Scale Example:
0 points: Does not meet requirements
1 point: Poor – significantly below requirements
2 points: Fair – below requirements in some areas
3 points: Good – meets requirements
4 points: Very Good – exceeds requirements in some areas
5 points: Excellent – significantly exceeds requirements
Typical Weighting Example:
Quality: 60%
- Technical Capability: 30%
- Project Management: 20%
- Social Value: 10%
Price: 40%
Detailed Breakdown of Criteria and Scores:
- Technical Capability (30%)
0 points: No evidence of technical capability.
1 point: Limited technical capability, with significant gaps.
2 points: Basic technical capability, some gaps remain.
3 points: Meets technical requirements adequately.
4 points: Exceeds technical requirements in several areas.
5 points: Outstanding technical capability, fully meets and exceeds all requirements.
- Project Management (20%)
0 points: No project management plan provided.
1 point: Poor project management approach, with major concerns.
2 points: Basic project management, with some deficiencies.
3 points: Adequate project management plan that meets the requirements.
4 points: Very good project management plan, with minor enhancements.
5 points: Excellent project management plan, fully detailed and robust.
- Social Value (10%)
0 points: No consideration of social value.
1 point: Minimal social value, not aligned with requirements.
2 points: Basic social value, lacking in detail.
3 points: Adequate social value, meets the requirements.
4 points: Very good social value, with additional benefits.
5 points: Excellent social value, providing significant additional benefits.
- Price (40%)
Evaluated based on competitiveness and value for money. Lower prices score higher, provided they do not compromise quality.
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Understanding and using scoring methodologies is a key tool for successful bid management. This approach should be based on continuous improvement and a culture of ensuring each bid is better!
At Thornton & Lowe, we not only offer outsourced bid writing services, but we also provide:
- Bid writing courses
- Bid mentor service and 1-2-1 coaching for your team
- Bid review service to add value to a live bid, while also training your team and feeding back to senior management.
