You can’t win every opportunity!

The prospect of securing new contracts, clients, or partnerships is tempting, and many businesses instinctively strive to win every opportunity that crosses their desk. However, this approach can be detrimental to long-term success.

In order to thrive within competitive markets, it is always best for any business to adopt a strategic mindset in this regard. This is why we should always utilise the bid/no-bid decision process: a critical framework for evaluating and pursuing the opportunities most aligned with a company’s strengths, goals, and resources.

The Pitfalls of Chasing Every Opportunity

It might seem the most obvious thing of all to want to win every opportunity. But bids and proposals are always a lot of work due to the nature and value of the work on offer. This is why carefully selecting those you want to pursue is very important. It becomes a resource issue as much as anything, but hugely impacts the bid win rate overall.

Resource Drain

Bidding on contracts is a time-intensive and costly process. Crafting a compelling proposal requires many skill sets not to mention a very short lead-time (3 weeks is the average). When resources are spread too thinly across multiple opportunities, the likelihood of success is greatly reduced. When better decisions are made on fewer options, it becomes a more strategic move.

Lack of Alignment with Business Goals

When a business chooses opportunities which don’t align with their business goals, it will often lead to poor performance. Simply because the strength of the business doesn’t correlate with the work being pursued. Client selection is important in any line of work. Where you have a misaligned contract it doesn’t help with future opportunities, and can cause unnecessary strain and risk while you try to navigate a new market.

Damage to Reputation

Reputation damage is present in everything. Consider the long term impact if you submit a poorly written proposal, what message does that communicate to the buyer? First impressions last. They might not only not view you favourably for one opportunity but many. Poor information, lack of detail, no understanding it all sends a message. It will often send a message of ‘can’t be bothered’ which seriously impacts credibility overall.

Opportunity Costs

While we always need to consider resource, it is mainly the cost around it. Submitting bids and proposals is a cost and time intensive activity. Let’s face it, there is usually only one winner and many losers (sadly). Lessons can be learnt and improvements made, but this doesn’t take away the cost already generated. And most businesses want a decent ROI. When we consider both the financial and strategic implications, as a team we are able to make better decisions which lead to improved results.

The Importance of the Bid/No-Bid Process

The bid/no-bid process is an evaluative framework designed to help businesses assess whether to pursue a particular opportunity. It is a structured approach that ensures resources are deployed efficiently, aligns opportunities with strategic goals, and maximizes the chances of winning meaningful contracts. The focus should rest on business strategy, risk mitigation, resource use and competitive advantage.

Key Components of an Effective Bid/No-Bid Process

An effective bid/no-bid framework will always need careful planning with objective analysis and a clear criteria. It will and should also be a key process which is regularly updated, because things are always changing. Some of the essential steps include:

Define Evaluation Criteria

The foundation of the bid/no-bid process is a set of predefined criteria that reflect the company’s strategic priorities, capabilities, and risk tolerance. I have recently taken on a new client, this is always one of the first actions I take. I have developed a process which is specific to the needs of the client especially in regard to technical and commercial considerations. An example of some of those questions to be considered is given here:

Decision Makers

It is important to have a strong framework, but also to know who the key decision makers will be and to stick to this every time. This will often be those directly responsible within a bid team or those with a commercial/sales authority in an organisation. This will ultimately make the decision making process and success criteria much more successful as a result.

Score Opportunities Against Criteria

Develop a scoring system to evaluate opportunities quantitatively. Assign weights to each criterion based on its importance to your business. This way you can truly assess whether it aligns with your business in a number of areas. Opportunities which score over a particular threshold can advance to the next stage.

Document Decisions

Maintain a record of bid/no-bid decisions and the reasoning behind them. This documentation creates a valuable knowledge base for future opportunities and fosters accountability. Ideally a scoring sheet with questions assigned for each area of business concern, which can be quickly viewed in post bid reviews.

Best Practices for Using the Bid/No-Bid Process

The focus should always start with having a well defined criteria for this process. It should be reviewed on a regular basis and updated to reflect current priorities. This action ensures that all decisions remain relevant and effective. Proposal software can help to streamline the evaluation process through the centralisation of data and automated scoring, as an option. Investing in the correct technology can help to improve efficiency and consistency.

Helping the extended team to understand the bid process is also hugely valuable. It allows others to appreciate the complexity involved in winning such work, and all the steps needed to ensure success. With that comes the ability to monitor results over time. Allowing patterns of data, as well as strengths and improvements to be considered which can help impact and deliver future success.

Consistency is everything. It might be tempting to ignore the bid/no-bid process for more lucrative contracts or when put under pressure from others for results. Sticking to the objective and strategic plan will help to deliver results objectively over time.

Next Steps

There is always a desire in business to secure new business, but there is also no such thing as a ‘quick win’! Certainly not in the bid and proposal game. Any instinct to pursue every opportunity, is misguided and counterproductive. Chasing too many opportunities undermines any strategic focus.

The bid/no-bid process is not about turning away business but about choosing the right business. With a clear criteria, disciplined evaluation, and a focus on long-term goals, a business can position themselves as trusted partners and industry leaders, ensuring success well into the future.