15 Mar Importance of Effective Meetings within Tendering
By Katy Berrill, Wednesday 15th March 2017
Here at Bid and Tender Support Ltd we understand the importance of running effective meetings during the Tender Process and is something that seems so obvious but in the whirlwind of completing Submissions, it can be forgotten. With a good structure, purpose and timeframe in place meetings can bring together the right people to discuss added value, key win themes, client requirements, and value for money initiatives as well as review content against evaluation criteria and client specifications. As evidenced recently on a bid where we helped a Client win a Contract through increasing their Quality Response by 10% which allowed them more scope within the Pricing. We increased their score by holding a Review Meeting with their Key Project Staff to identify improvements from previous Bids and opportunities for Added Value completely specific to this individual Client.
Our recommendation for effective meetings would follow:
Having an initial internal meeting – A kick-off meeting helps to discuss requirements, identify key win themes, helps with content planning, allocation of responsibilities for completion, identifies any need for external support, enables time to get subcontractor quotes if required and starts the process for identifying clarification requirements.
When reaching the half way point with the tendering work, we often propose a mid-review meeting to make sure you’re on track. This gives us a chance to check interim reviews giving us the opportunity to discuss significant accomplishments or identify issues or obstacles which may cause overall delay.
When the tender work is approaching the closing date, having a final review helps to ensure everything captured in the kick off meeting has been communicated in the Bid, there is a thread throughout the Bid which provides consistency in the offering. Each member of the Team can be involved in signing off the entire submission. This also helps bring everyone up to speed, in case there is an interview or presentation stage which those attending will need to be fully informed on the Bid Proposals.
It may feel like overkill all these meetings, but if they all have a purpose and everyone comes prepared they don’t have to take long and can be a breath of fresh air in your process when emails amongst the team become hard to follow as tails start to be chased in the run up to the deadline.
