Responding to Calls for tenders requires a methodical approach and meticulous preparation. Since this process demands significant time and resources, maximizing your chances of success involves defining a clear response strategy from the outset and identifying the unique value that makes you the ideal partner.
Why Calls for Tenders Matter in Business
Calls for tenders represent strategic opportunities for businesses, granting them access to lucrative markets and enhancing their reputation. They are competitive processes where multiple companies compete for a contract. Winning a bid can secure major business opportunities, increase brand visibility, and strengthen market credibility.
Why a Response Strategy is Essential
A well-defined response strategy helps your business stand out among competitors and ensures your offer aligns precisely with the client’s needs. It requires a thorough understanding of the request for proposal (RFP) requirements and the ability to tailor your proposal to meet the client’s expectations.
Moreover, a solid response strategy ensures internal alignment among all contributors. Every team member involved should understand why your company is the best choice for the client. This strategic alignment must go beyond just meeting technical specifications and should be reflected throughout your entire proposal.
In bid management, identifying the response strategy is one of the first steps. This article outlines the key steps to building a winning response strategy when competing in a call for tenders.
Step 1: Define Your Unique Strengths (Beyond Basic Differentiators)
Success in a call for tenders relies on clearly identifying what sets you apart – in bid management, we call it “discriminators”. This process is closely related to a SWOT analysis.
Who Should Be Involved in the Strategic Discussion?
This analysis typically takes place in one or more meetings, depending on whether you are bidding alone or in a consortium and the complexity of the tender. At a minimum, involve:
- Someone familiar with the client’s needs,
- A market expert (domestic and/or international),
- A product manager with technical knowledge,
- An implementation expert who understands the execution process.
Usually, the bid manager leads this meeting. For simpler tenders, a discussion between the bid manager and the sales team may be enough. The goal is to structure and document key insights.
Before the meeting, all participants should review the RFP. It is essential to ensure that everyone is fully informed rather than assuming they have read it.
If some participants haven’t had time to review the document (which is common), set aside time at the beginning of the meeting to go through the key aspects of the tender. This guarantees a shared understanding of the opportunity and the client’s requirements, especially as several RFP are usually handled in parallel.
The RFP document defines the client’s expectations and evaluation criteria. A detailed analysis of this document is critical to understanding how to align your response with the client’s needs while showcasing your strengths.
Mapping the Competition
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Identify Key Competitors
List three to five serious competitors. These can be standalone companies or consortiums based on your market knowledge. Don’t forget to include the incumbent provider, as they often participate in the new bidding process.
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Analyze Competitor Strengths
For each competitor, identify their known or assumed strengths. If certain information is missing, conduct research to refine your analysis. This effort can significantly impact your response strategy.
Likewise, objectively evaluate your own company’s strengths, which might include:
- A strong local or international presence,
- A well-established market reputation,
- Technical expertise in a specialized area,
- A competitive pricing strategy.
Ensure your analysis is comprehensive and realistic. Simply stating, “We are the best,” is not a tangible strength.
- Identify Weaknesses in Your Competitors and Your Own Business Use the same methodology to identify competitor weaknesses and acknowledge your own potential gaps. In the contratst to the strengths, weaknesses might include:
- Lack of local presence,
- Less mature technology,
- A negative market perception,
- An inappropriate pricing model.
Pinpointing Your True Differentiators
Once you’ve assessed the competitive landscape, identify the strengths that are unique to your business, absent in your competitors, and directly valuable to the client.
A true discriminator must meet three key criteria:
✅ A strength that you possess,
✅ A strength that competitors do not have,
✅ A direct benefit to the client.
If your analysis does not reveal clear differentiators, reconsider whether submitting a bid is worthwhile. If your competitive advantage is too weak, it might be more strategic to not bid.
Step 2: Defining Your Response Strategy
Once you’ve identified your discriminators, the next step is determining the best way to highlight them. Your response strategy should focus on making your arguments compelling and persuasive.
How to Showcase Your Unique Strengths
This may include:
- Citing a strong customer reference that proves your expertise,
- Highlighting your specific organizational capabilities, such as a centralized vs. decentralized structure,
- Providing tangible proof of a unique capability that competitors lack.
At this stage, you might not have all the necessary proof points. Some may emerge later, particularly when defining the technical solution. In such cases, consider instructing your technical experts to integrate elements that explicitly demonstrate your strengths.
Minimizing Weaknesses & Neutralizing Competitor Strengths
For each strength, select one to three key supporting elements that showcase its value persuasively.
Then, apply the same approach to:
✅ Mitigate your own weaknesses by offering strong justifications or alternative solutions,
✅ Highlight competitor weaknesses when relevant and backed by facts,
✅ Counteract competitor strengths by demonstrating why your solution is better suited to the client’s needs.
Formalizing Your Response Strategy
Consolidate these insights into a one-page summary that will guide your team throughout the bid process. A well-documented response strategy serves as a cohesive narrative that strengthens your proposal and maximizes your chances of winning.
Step 3: Execution – Aligning Your Team & Finalizing Your Proposal
Once your response strategy is in place, ensure that it is clearly communicated to all internal teams and reflected throughout the proposal.
Also, don’t forget to prepare a compelling executive summary. This section should immediately convey why your company is the best choice and highlight your key strengths.
Maximize Your Chances of Winning Tenders
Winning a call for tenders is not just a formality—it is a strategic opportunity requiring thorough preparation and structured execution. By clearly defining your differentiators, building a compelling response strategy, and showcasing your strengths persuasively, you can outperform competitors.
Anticipation, internal alignment, and a cohesive proposal are the keys to success. Implementing a rigorous methodology will turn every call for tenders into an opportunity to strengthen your market position.
