Thoughts on APMP's UK benchmark report

So, what does APMP's first UK benchmarking study tell us that's interesting? Having shared my thoughts on the US report earlier in the year, it's time to have a look at the newly published UK study and to, again, offer a "top ten" list:

1. We're a happy and successful bunch. 89% are "very / somewhat satisfied" with the state of the proposal management industry. 72% of us rate our organisation's success in winning new business as "excellent" or "good".
2. Conducting lessons learned came top of the list of "organisational behaviours and processes that predict high win rates". That's absolutely fascinating. Hands up if you ran a learning review after your last bid? Too few do: it's ranked 7th on the list of 18 "best practices utilized in proposal management". And when they do, it's too often a post-mortem or inquest. Is 2020 the year when we'll all get serious about this?
3. I was encouraged to see training among the top five. It's a shame, then, that 55% state that their leadership view training as "not at all a priority" or "not too much a priority". That's perhaps because 38% of those completing the survey saw the RoI on training as only "fair" or "poor": perhaps they're choosing the wrong company to work with! I'm with the 8% of leaders who treat training as a top priority, knowing the huge and quick impact it can have on win rates.
4. The others in the top five were "coordinating cost and price", "knowing customer hot buttons", and "writing storyboards and plans". That's despite only 28% saying that storyboarding is actually "part of their organisation's business development process." At least, "writing storyboards" is seen as more important in the UK than the US - perhaps because we've moved here to far more nimble approaches to content design / planning than the more staid, traditional, formal storyboarding that has been seen in the past.
5. 85% agree that a "content document library" would be "extremely / very useful". Sadly, only 58% say theirs is "actively managed". That's a lot of frustrated people using bad content to write poor proposals faster.
6. 43% of organisations have a "centralised structure of one team" devoted to "business development, proposal management, and proposal writing". That masks a big variation, though: "Large organisations - those with more than 2,500 employees - are much more likely to have separate development teams for individual business sectors that to have a centralised structure for managing opportunities (73% vs 27%)".
7. 29% of organisations lack a formal documented qualification process, or have no such process at all. This rises to 42% of smaller companies (under 2,500 staff), but it's still true for 15% of larger firms. That makes for way too many of us wasting time on deals we're not confident we're going to win, or where we don't have the necessary resources and support. Is it any wonder other surveys report problems with well-being in our profession?
8. As with the US study, respondents reported that competitive analysis is one of the least-practiced good practices, and viewed as one of the least important. Perhaps so few doing this supports my long-standing premise that good management of competitive intelligence is one of the things that can make good proposal functions even better as they look for a further edge.
9. When I set up my first bid centre 20 or so years ago, I looked to the US for inspiration. In bid and proposal terms, they were far ahead of the UK in terms of processes and professionalism. These days, I think the UK's overtaken our American cousins. Again and again, comparison between the UK report and the US equivalent tends to support that. But I'm aware that even saying that could open the floodgates for arguments. It'd be a fun debate over a glass of wine, not one I want to enter into here!
10. APMP really needs to sort out its nomenclature. Terms such as "proposal management", "bids", "proposal writing" and "business development" seem to be used almost inter-changeably. Surveys like this need precision if the conclusions it draws really are to be robust, especially from an industry body.

I confess that I didn't enjoy completing the survey. At times, it seemed a little clunky and confused. That nearly 40% of those who started the survey didn't complete it suggests I wasn't alone in that. (And, of course, as with any survey, the results are skewed to those who took it - in this case, about 16% of APMP's UK members: you might expect them to be working in environments that have more mature approaches to proposal development). Neither did I enjoy the report: where's the punchy executive summary, for example? (I have a background in statistics, so I didn't mind wading through. Others may well give up!).

But any information like this adds weight to arguments for following best practice. Add it to your festive reading list. Although if your boss gives you a copy as a present, remember that the association is offering PDF copies free for APMP UK members, so s/he may not being as generous as it seems!

PS This is billed on the cover as a "2020-21" report, even though the research took place in summer 2019. That suggests a long time to wait for the next one. If you're keen to assess your proposal capabilities in the meantime, you might find the (free) Strategic Proposals "Proposal Benchmarker", completed to date by 600 or so organisations, to be interesting and useful.