SME Collaboration

SME (Subject Matter Expert) - These are the Business Heads or Internal Stakeholders within a business who know their stuff. Any successful bid proposal relies upon a team effort, but that a team needs to work together. Where it doesn't those issues need to be resolved before contract success can result.

Potential Issues

These could be numerous:

• no clear communication between departments
• no real understanding of department roles
• a power dynamic struggle
• a poor understanding of the proposal process
• time management issues

Leadership First

Most opportunities which require a written bid or proposal are generally complex in nature and of high value. This means that realistically there should be no greater focus in a business than when such an opportunity presents itself. The bid team should have the absolute focus of all other stakeholders, where everyone plays their part. This needs to be a Leadership approach where winning bids is an aligned objective for both SLT and senior leaders across the business and not just the bid team.

Bid Resource

Too often the bid team are left to manage everything with little support or information for them to work with, coupled with an incredibly short time frame. Adequate resource needs to be applied when submitting a bid but moreso during the down time in between submissions. This is where the real work gets done.

If there isn't the investment in time or resource of this function, the results will always be the same. A bid team is made up of many functions but primarily of sales specialists, not miracle workers.

If you are wondering why you are not getting the results, ask yourself:

• does your team work well together?
• is their true collaboration?
• are you happy with the work produced? if not, why not?

You can't get the results without the work and as I often like to say, usually to myself, "multi-million pound contracts don't win themselves"!

Work Winning Focus

Consider all the factors we need to think about when we want to win any contract, not just a large bid or proposal. Some of the core areas include:

Where the most lucrative work is concerned in a business, there is so much to consider, which requires the appropriate resource and planning.

Collaboration Actions

So how do you get your teams to be more aligned? Start with more collaborative opportunities to develop those relationships over time:

• Take the time to understand what each department does?
• Spend Time Together - Team Days and Strategy Planning Sessions are good starters.
• Invite key personnel to those sales meetings, particularly in the final stages. Customers often want to see members of the senior team, operations, legal, finance even if it is just the once. These are the people they will interact with more fully as a partnership is formed.
• Promote other departments especially on company-wide emails or meetings. The focus shouldn't always be on the Business Development team (while important), there is also other essential work being done by others. This empowers your team, makes them feel valued and ultimately supports the group dynamic.
• Explain fully, the role of proposal/bid team. They are there to work alongside the sales team, not instead of. As the most key stakeholder in any business, the sales/business development team have key insights not to mention the relationship with the prospect. Make it clear what is required and keep that relationship tight.

Help Required

The bid team can't predict all eventualities, despite the greatest resource and most fabulous Bid Library, information and guidance will always be necessary from all parties.

It can often feel like a battle when it shouldn't be. It isn't just down to the bid team to win the work, they shouldn't be chasing down the input of others, this should be the main priority. Running a bid is hard enough, but even moreso when the relationship isn't balanced.

I have personally worked with teams who have moved heaven and earth for the bid team, and others who have submitted everything so late we have missed the opportunity completely. The results always speak for themselves.

The End Result

When you start to implement some of these changes you will see a big difference in not only how your teams work closer together, but through collaboration the results which come from that. The best teams work in this way.

If you enjoyed this article, you will LOVE my podcast of the same name. Short, sharp episodes where I discuss similar topics and more. Available on Spotify and all other major outlets.