Would you outsource Bid Management

I noticed a company in Netherlands offering Bid Management services to interested clients. Then I found one in Ireland, one in Australia and this one in the USA calls themselves Competition Managers. 

No company I worked for has outsourced bid management but I have only worked for three till now. 

So would I outsource Bid Management? 

I had blogged earlier about the three different dimensions of bid managment, i.e. the strategic, the operational, and the creative. Maybe we can try to answer this question along these dimensions. 

The Strategic Aspects of Bid Management: I would probably never want to outsource anyy of this. This will involve sharing company IP, your positioning within the bid, pricing information and decisions, organizational politics and most importantly, lots of sensitive information about your client and your relationship with the client. I can't imagine outsourcing and having to share any of this with my vendor - except perhaps to evaluate specific strategic ideas in a bid, for example to help forge a partnership with another vendor or to employ an expert consultant to do some specialized research or something like that. 

The Operational Aspects of Bid Management: Here there is surely a lot more potential for outsourcing. For some operational activities, it might even be desirable to outsource, especially when the Bid Manager has to handle both the strategic and operational aspects which can be difficult. Here, the challenge to outsourcing, however, comes mainly because operational managment of a bid often requires an insider's networking ability and connects within the organization. 

The creative Aspects of Bid Management: Here is where you have high potential for outsourcing, especially for everything that you submit as part of the bid such as proposals and presentations and collaterals and so on. An expert can surely fine tune the message and present it in the best way. Of course, the limitation here is clearly that the creative side of Bid Management also involves some critical oral presentations and so on, which you cant outsource. You have to defend your proposal with your client, no one else can do it for you. 

So, outsourcing is possible in  Bid Management, but...

Usain Bolt and Bid Management

Usain Bolt did it again last week in Berlin, smashing another world record and winning another gold. The guardian wrote, 

Bolt got off the blocks quickly and opened up an easy, early lead. He had time, towards the end of the race, to appear to check the stadium clock before he crossed the finish line.

Why did he win?  Of course, he ran fast and of course he trained hard, but to me, he won so handsomely because he got off to this rockety start.

Bid Managment is something like a race, and the start is the most important time in the race. In a bid, it is what you do with those first few days that makes or breaks a bid. After that, it is often difficult to catch up especially when you have solid competition. Of course, I mean those first few days in each stage of the bid i.e. after the RFP arrives, again after the client invites you for the defense meeting, then when the contract negotiation date is set, and so on.

If you use those first few days well, then your bid will be off to a running start. That is the crucial period when you can influence which way your bid will go. Let me illustrate with an example:

You get the RFP on a tuesday and you despatch it promptly to one part of your organization which you think can help you make a good bid. You don't consult anyone since it seems like a straightforward requirement. You also dont consider any alternate groups who could support you. You of course dont schedule an immediate quick review of the opportunity with your boss whom you hate (you conveniently forget that his one strength is that he actually knows who does what best in your company). 

You just go with your hunch and send the RFP off to your contact. You wait for 24 hours and then give your buddy a call. He tells you he is yet to look at it since he is working on another proposal which would be done in just a couple of days more - by thursday! He asks you what the RFP is all about. You say it is something right up his alley! He asks how much time do we have. You say 3 weeks. Then he says, great...I will look at it the day after and surely come back to you before monday. You feel satisfied having spoken to the right guy and happy that he will start work at least on day 4 after the RFP has arrived.  You also dont bother to read the RFP in too much detail since you feel so comfy and confident in your friend who has yet to read the RFP!  

Now, sometimes there is a happy ending to this story. Mostly, there isn't. Murphy's law makes your contact hard to reach on monday and I dont have to tell you the rest of the story... 

Anyhow, by monday lunch time, you are just one day away from the RFP deadline for questions, you are dealing with a nasty new group which is asking why you delayed getting the RFP to them, an angry boss who is screaming murder...and most importantly, you realize you have probably already lessened your chance of winning the deal... 

Maybe Usain Bolt would have done this differently.