IT Services Bid Management Enabling Framework

IT Services Bid Management Enabling Framework
Innovation Crafting Process

IT Services
Bid
Management
Enabling
Framework
Innovation
Crafting Process

© Crafitti Consulting Private Limited www.crafitti.com 1

BID MANAGEMENT ENABLING
FRAMEWORK

Navneet Bhushan and Karthikeyan Iyer
Navneet.bhushan@crafitti.com Karthikeyan.iyer@crafitti.com

© Crafitti Consulting Private Limited www.crafitti.com Confidential June 27, 2011 2

Background

Bidding for Information Technology Services or Information Technology
enabled Services (The IT/ITeS) is a highly context sensitive activity fraught with
many uncertainties and impacted by multiple imponderables. Managing an
IT/ITeS bid involves multiple stakeholders and skills. The aim of dedicated bid
managers is typically to carry out high number of bids in a specific time period
and increase the win/bid ratio. However, due to increasing number of bids and
the amount of information needed from multiple experts or stakeholders to
organize a response for a bid, it is a challenge for the bid manager to organize
high quality response to the customer needs in the compressed time lines that
invariably creeps in despite the best intentions. This impacts the overall quality
of the bid response and in fact impacts the win-bid ratio to a considerable
extent. There is a need to ease the task of bid managers to generate responses
to a large number of bids where each bid has its specific peculiarities and each
bid may require multiple mix and match of existing services that the IT services
company provides.

Crafitti was involved in working with a large Indian IT/ITeS Company to
improve the effectiveness of the Bid Management system. During the initial
interactions with the Bid management team in the Telecom Services Provider
(TSP) vertical specific pain areas were articulated by the team. It was decided to
use the Innovation Crafting Framework for solving the pain areas. This
framework propels the team to take a holistic approach by taking the problem
through clearly distinct phases of –
(I) Problem Formulation/Exploration/Definition
(II) Ideation/Solution Generation/Brainstorming
(III) Solution Development
(IV) Solution Evaluation
(V) Solution Implementation
(VI) Monitoring of Benefits.

Each of these phases require half-day workshop with almost half day of
offline work by the teams per week for over 5-6 weeks as the case may be. This
report describes the complete process and also documents the key solutions and
improvements created using the Innovation Crafting by designing a new Bid
Management Enabling Framework.


Developing a Bid Management Enabling Framework
(For Telecom Services Providers Vertical of a global IT/ITeS Services Provider)

The Need: Bidding for IT/ITeS services is a highly context sensitive activity fraught with many uncertainties and impacted by
multiple imponderables. Managing an IT/ITeS bid involves multiple stakeholders and skills. The aim of dedicated bid
managers is typically to carry out high number of bids in a specific time period and increase the win/bid ratio. However, due
to increasing number of bids and the amount of information needed from multiple experts or stakeholders to organize a
response for a bid, it is a challenge for the bid manager to organize high quality response to the customer needs in the
compressed time lines that invariably creeps in despite the best intentions. This impacts the overall quality of the bid
response and in fact impacts the win-bid ratio to a considerable extent. There is a need to ease the task of bid managers to
generate responses to a large number of bids where each bid has its specific peculiarities and each bid may require multiple
mix and match of existing services that The IT Company provides.

Telecom Services Providers (TSP) Vertical
During the initial interactions with the Bid management team in TSP Vertical specific pain areas were articulated by the
team. It was decided to use the Innovation Crafting Framework for solving the pain areas. This framework propels the team
to take a holistic approach by taking the problem through clearly distinct phases of – (I) Problem
Formulation/Exploration/Definition (II) Ideation/Solution Generation/Brainstorming (III) Solution Development (IV) Solution
Evaluation (V) Solution Implementation (VI) Monitoring of Benefits. Each of these phases require half-day workshop with
almost half day of offline work by the teams per week for over 5-6 weeks as the case may be.

THE PROBLEM

The TSP Bid Management Team felt the need for improving their Bid process. These are the pain areas that the team
identified (Please see Appendix I)

• Identification of proper stakeholders for participating in the Bid
• Inadequate requirements from customer in the Request for Proposal (RFP).
• Lack of competency in the technical team to deliver solutions.
• Partnering with product vendors
• Short deadlines on the response submission
• Updating reusable components
• Lack of The IT Company Expertise
• Bandwidth of Finance and Delivery teams to contribute to the Bid.
• The winnable price point is not known to the Business Development Manager (BDM).
• Lack of empowerment of Bid manager to call a no bid based on Qualification of the Bid.
• Relationship with the customer

The pain areas listed were a mix of problems and solutions. Crafitti team tried to scratch below the surface to expand and
articulate the problem statement using Phase I of Innovation Crafting Framework.

Phase I: Problem Formulation/Exploration/Definition Phase

WHITE HAT – WHAT WE FOUND (Information, data, facts)

The team (The Crafitti team and TSP Bid Management) got together and wore the White Hat to define the problem and its
surrounding environment. The aim was to build on the team’s definition of the problem (above) and create a consolidated


overall picture of the problem space and the problem within it. The White Hat Mind Map is given below. For details about
each item please refer to Appendix II.

RED HAT – What the stakeholders Believe – feelings, emotions and perceptions

The team then got together to wear the Red Hat and look at the problem from an emotional perspective. This was again a
continuation of the problem definition phase and the idea was to define the problem from a different perspective. The Red
Hat generated some interesting points. The details about each emotional belief/perception are described in Appendix III.

Phase II: Ideation/Solution Generation/Brainstorming

In the Ideation workshop (Edward De Bono’s Green Hat), following main areas for ideation were decided (Please see
Appendix V)-

(a) The team decided that a completely new system design rather than ideas for system improvement is what it needs
to focus on
(b) Rather than focusing on the existing bottom up approach of responding to a bid, it was decided that a solutions
based approach is needed. This top down approach and its various elements need to be developed.
(c) TRIZ Inventive Principles were used to trigger generic ideas from outside the field perspective.

Following key solution directions were culled out of ideas that came out in the brainstorming session:

NEW SYSTEM DESIGN!
A Well-Defined Framework Management Commitment and Organization Structure- Get Bid
Clear Decision Making done more closer to customer
site

SOLUTION BASED APPROACH!
Creating a Strong Domain
Building a ready- Vendor Ensuring Creating a Solution
Competency
made Look-up Relationship Clear Menu – just like
table for WBS/ Management Customer “do it yourself”
resource loading Drivers Meals
Visibility

NEW WAY OF DOING THINGS!
Bid Team instead Web Based Bid Writing System
Role Play- Can we Leverage the
Simulate the Creative of Bid Manager –
Focus on one Bid
Customer during Bid Frenzy
at a Time
Response Crafting


Phase III: Solution Development

With the Ideas generated in Phase II, Yellow hat sessions were conducted offline as well as with the team on the following
areas:

(a) Bid Response Look up Framework
(b) Vendor Relationship Management (See Appendix VIII)
(c) Customers Drivers Understanding (See Appendix IX)
(d) New System Design – Process and Organization Structure (See Appendix X)

Further a yellow hat session was carried out by The Crafitti team offline on following white hat points:
• Inadequate Bid Strategy
• Lack of Common Operating Picture (COP)
• Customer Value Proposition
• Lack of risk taking ability by BFM
• Relationship with customer needs to be enhanced
• Critical to customer (CTC) is not evaluated
• Schedule squeeze
• Delivery Capacity Constraints
• Response sent without having capability
• Regarding ownership of bid
• Regarding Previous History of Bid

This session yielded about 40 different ideas (See Appendix XI):
At this point the distilled understanding of the information, emotions, creative solutions and development of solutions
have been synthesized into the BMEF components as described in Figure 1 as the Bid Management Enabling Framework.

BID MANAGEMENT ENABLING FRAMEWORK


Balanced Vendor Customer
Metrics Relationship Drivers

Organization
Structure
Ball Park
Estimates Solution Based
Approach
BM
Process
Solutions Alternatives
Menu
Prequalification
Model
BMEF
Bid Strategy Customer Value
Model

Dynamic
Teaming
KM Execution
Strategy

Bid Approach
Roles and Process
Responsibilities Execution
Multiple COA

BDM BFM BM Bid
Team


The framework consists of following elements:

 Bid Management Organization Structure

There are four different organization structures that came up during ideation
(a) Onsite Bid Manager (may be Geography based) backed by an Analyst Team offshore
(b) BDM provides the initial solutions on his own onsite (may be through a web based bid management system)
(c) Bid Team travels onsite – finish off the bid response after initial traction by BDM – backed by the offshore team
(d) A Web Based Bid writing system is continuously being written, updated and maintained. This is visible to all
stakeholders as the bid response is being written.

 Bid Management Process Alternatives – Bid Life Cycle Models

Besides the existing bid management process which clearly is non-optimal in terms of maximum effort is spent at the last
moment – which is a crisis mode of operation, there were three alternative bid management processes came during
ideation. These are called Focused Frenzy, Continuous Common Operating Picture (COP) and Distributed Creative Frenzy
with Continuous COP. The existing process is termed the Last Minute Frenzy

Bid management process - Existing
Response
Delivered
Client

BDM

BM
Last
Day
Delivery/ Horizontals Fren

Time

Proposal A – Focused Frenzy - Process
Respons
e
Client Delivered

BDM

BM
Last
Day
Delivery/ Horizontals Fren
Time


Proposal B – Continuous COP Process
Response
Delivered
Client

BDM

Final
BM Touc
hes

Delivery/ Horizontals

Time

Proposal C – Distributed Frenzy with Continuous COP
Respons
e
Client Delivered

BDM

Cr Cr BM Cr
ea eat eat
tiv ive ive
Delivery/ Horizontals
Time

For each of the Bid Management Processes, detailed life cycle templates and milestones need to be created, as further
step. The Bid team will have the option of choosing any one or combination of process options as per the Bid.

 Vendor Relationship Model Alternatives (Please see Appendix IX)

 Bid Strategy Formulation
For each bid, it is imperative that the bid strategy is formulated upfront. The components of bid strategy are
(a) Pre-Qualification Model –for every bid based on Key parameters
(b) Customer Value Model
(c) Ball park Estimate using the Look up table
(d) Teaming Strategy
a. Based on Size & Criticality
b. Competitor/Customer Role based
c. Multiple Role play by Bid coordinators
(e) Specific Process/Approach for the Bid (Can be chosen from a library of processes or Bid Life cycle models)
(f) Generation of Multiple COAs (Courses of Action) rather than following one solution

 Solution Based Approach

Ball Park Estimation Approach


Solution Offering

Type of Bids Technology eTOM components
(i, ii, iii, iv) (a,b,c,d) (1, 2,3,4)

Estimation Estimation Estimation
model for i, a, 1 model for i, a, 2 model for ii, b, 2 …

Project Project Project
schedule schedule schedule

• The solution offering should be categorized into different buckets
• Every option should be mixed and matched; a consolidated list of Offerings for which models have to be built
needs to be arrived at
• This has to be piloted for the practices within TSP before taking it to the Horizontals (PoC)
• For building the model, AHP technique could be adopted
• We need to come up with parameters such as # of parameters that could be present in an Estimation model etc.
All parameters should be divided into “Must have”, “should have” and “nice to have” buckets and accordingly the
model should be built.
• The model should be able to incorporate feedback based on past experiences
• This will lead to a Solution Menu development which customer can pick and choose.

 Knowledge Management System (To be explored as per the context and domain needs)

 Execution based on chosen Life Cycle Model (To be developed further)

Each of these components of the Framework need to be developed and we propose possible use of following
tools/techniques/methodologies during the development of each component:

Possible Methodologies to be used for Development of framework components:

 Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
 Six Thinking Hats
 Perception Mapping


 Role Play
 Gaming
 Mind Mapping
 Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM)
 TRIZ


Appendix I

Pain Areas – Initial Articulation

• Identification of proper stakeholders for participating in the Bid
• Inadequate requirements from customer in the RFP. Competitors know them through internal information (e.g.,
Verizon)
• Lack of competency in the technical team to deliver solutions. There are two broad areas
• Solution area
• Product area
• Partnering with product vendors - (Requirement of license fees etc)
• Short deadlines on the response submission
• Updation of reusable components.
• Lack of The IT Company Expertise. There are two broad areas
• Resources have the expertise but The IT Company does not. (Lack of references, case studies.)
• Resources do not have the expertise.
• Bandwidth of Finance and Delivery teams to contribute to the Bid.
• The winnable price point is not known to the BDM.
• Lack of empowerment of Bid manager to call a no bid based on Qualification of the Bid.
• Relationship with the customer - Eircom (Did not have a presence in Ireland).


Appendix II

White Hat – Facts, Information and Data

1. People/Teams involved in a Bid
a. Client
The client plays a source/sink role in the Bid process. Mostly, the Bid team doesn’t interact directly with the
client, client interactions being handled by the BDM.

b. BDM
The Business Development Manager is the client facing interface of the Bid Team. He also decides the final bid
content, qualifies the bid and in general is the key decision-maker in the overall Bid Management Process.

c. Bid Manager
The Bid Manager is the central point of contact for a bid. He interfaces with the BDM to get his inputs on the
Bid requirements and expected response. He identifies the stakeholders in the bid – people who need to
provide technical inputs to the bid. He manages the bid response creation and completion process by soliciting
inputs from various quarters, stitching the different inputs together, providing timelines and deadlines and
providing a consolidated Bid Response to the BDM. He also interfaces with the BFM to decide the costing
structure of the bid.

d. BFM
The Business Finance Manager decides the costing structure of the bid.

e. Delivery team
The delivery team(s) provides technical inputs to the bid. The teams (or individuals within teams) are
identified by the Bid Manager.

f. Stakeholders
“Stakeholders” is a common term used to describe all people providing inputs to bid response creation. This
includes the various technical teams, pre-sales teams, vendors etc.

g. Pre-sales
The pre-sales teams play a key role in providing a customer-centric context of the bid (owing to the fact that
they are likely to be geographically located in close proximity to the customer as well as being involved in
other bids for the same customer). They also provide technical inputs as and when required.

h. Verticals and Horizontals
This is more of a breakup of “Delivery Teams” based on The IT Company organization structure. The inputs
solicited are usually technical – specific to the expertise that the person brings to the table and the needs of
the bid.

i. Vendors
Vendors provide the hardware and infrastructural solutions that are part of the overall bid response. Vendors
are selected based on The IT Company’s relationships with various vendors, their capabilities, the bid
requirements and cost. They are usually independent players located overseas e.g. IBM.

2. Current Process


Discussions revealed that the current process (or the current ideal defined process) doesn’t exist explicitly on paper.
However, there is a fair understanding of what the recommended process looks like:
a. Approach Note from The IT Company to the customer
This is not strictly under the purview of the bid management process as viewed by the bid team – it is
considered as a pre-RFP process which is taken care of by the BDM.

b. RFI/RFP from customer to The IT Company
There was unanimous agreement that this was step 1 of the Bid Management process. Once an RFI/RFP is
received by the BDM, he forwards it to the Bid Team. It is picked up by one of the Bid Managers in the Bid
Team. There seems to be some sort of an RFI/RFP pipeline, with different Bid Managers servicing the pipeline
based on individual capacity or urgency of bid response.

Usually, there are a couple of different response dates provided by the client:
 Last date for clarification, till which time there can be a flow of queries/clarifications between
The IT Company (Bid Team – BDM) and client.
 Final submission date, which is the last date for submission of final Bid Response.

c. Bid qualification by Bid Manager and BDM
Bid qualification basically involves the decision on “go” or “no-go”. This is based on the evaluation of
importance of bid by the BDM and The IT Company’s capability for bid and chances of conversion by the Bid
Manager. Roughly, about 25% of bids fall in the no-bid category. However, the BDM might still want a
response for a no-bid. These bids are marked as starred bids.

d. Bid strategy
The components of bid strategy are not clearly defined. Bid strategy, at a high level, includes the overall plan
for bid response creation and submission (within specified timelines) as well as an understanding of bid
contents, structure of the bid and costing issues. As per the team’s understanding, the strategy is worked out
by the BDM and the Bid Manager.

e. Stakeholder identification by Bid Manager
Based on the type of RFI/RFP, the Bid Manager identifies the different people that need to provide inputs to
the bid response. These are the stake-holders in the bid (the name is slightly misleading).

f. Solution crafting by Bid Team
Solution crafting usually begins with a Kick-off meeting to get all participants on the same page.
Timelines/deadlines are communicated. The Bid Manager shares bid-related information (documents,
previous history etc.). During the solutioning phase that follows, the Bid Manager interacts with the different
stakeholders (horizontals, pre-sales, verticals, vendors etc.) to craft the bid response. The Bid Manager also
collects queries/questions from the Bid Team and forwards them to the BDM; he forwards the
responses/answers received from the BDM to the Bid Team. The Bid Manager and BFM also start working on
bid costing issues.

g. Draft Response by Bid Team
The Bid Manager stitches the draft bid response together based on inputs received from the stakeholders. The
bid is sent to the BDM for review.

h. Sizing/estimation by Bid Team
The bid response is evaluated by the Bid Team to estimate the size of the bid.

i. Rough order pricing by Bid Team and BFM


The Bid Manager and BFM work the pricing strategy and overall price structure for the bid based on the draft
response. The BDM is also in the loop here.

j. Review/rework by Bid Team
Based on comments received from BDM and BFM (and possibly other stakeholders), the Bid Manager updates
and creates the final bid response.

k. Submission
The bid response is sent to the BDM for submission to the client.

3. Metrics
The BDM is evaluated on run-rate – total revenue generated.
The Bid Team (specifically, the Bid Manager) is evaluated on hit-rate – number of bids converted.

4. Capacity
The Bid Managers typically handle 1 bid request per week. However, the range of bid timelines is pretty wide – some as
low as a couple of hours, and some extend up to a month. Each bid manager typically works on multiple bids at the
same time. Sometimes, some bids have to be worked on priority basis. Also, quality tends to suffer if the number of
bids to be worked on is too high. How much is too high? The team wasn’t able to associate a number with too high, but
greater than 1 bid per week is a good starting point.

We also learnt that our current Bid conversion rate is less than 15%. Each member of the team was asked to provide his
“Top 3 reasons/causes” for the low conversion rate. The consolidated list of causes was as follows:

1. Solution Quality – solution not stitched together well enough.
2. Force-fitting due to lack of expertise
3. Lack of common operating picture
4. Not of interest to horizontals – they don’t feel like stakeholders
5. Lack of sense of ownership of bid
6. Lack of differentiated solutions
7. Lack of risk-taking ability from a BFM standpoint
8. Lack of expertise
9. Bid strategy inadequate
10. Schedule squeeze
11. Inadequate problem analysis
12. Poor customer value proposition
13. BDM relationship with customer – market intelligence
14. Previous history
15. Critical to Customer not evaluated
16. Customer choice – we lose to competition
17. Response botched up despite having capability
18. Response sent without having capability
19. Delivery capacity constraints


Appendix III
RED HAT – What the stakeholders Believe – feelings, emotions and perceptions

The team then got together to wear the Red Hat and look at the problem from an emotional perspective. This was
again a continuation of the problem definition phase and the idea was to define the problem from a different
perspective. The Red Hat through up some interesting points.

Summing up, the Red Hat session resulted in identification of the following areas with pros as well as cons:
1. Passion and teamwork
The team felt that the current process lacks passion. There were references to grand old days when the team used to
get together regularly to discuss bids and thereby generate a lot of enthusiasm and passion towards bid creation.
Seniors would help juniors. Now, the process has become a chore rather than a fun-filled and challenging activity.
People just go through the motions. Motivation levels are low. The same applies to teamwork. The process has
somehow killed the teamwork aspect. People now work on an individual basis and do not feel integrated with the
team. This also leads to lack of common operating picture and impacts bid ownership.

2. Bid pressure
There was consensus on the fact that the pressure on the team for submission of bids was very high. The team was
correspondingly in constant fire-fighting mode. There was also consistent pressure flowing from the top. Irrespective of
capacity of the team, bids were expected to be completed and sent across. This resulted in crisis-mode operation and
low quality of bids. Contrasting metrics further aggravated the problem. Due to constant pressure, focus on the bid
tended to waver. Also, sometimes, context switches were required to process certain bids on a priority basis without
impacting any of the other bids. At the same time, the team felt that pressure acted as a catalyst (more like a poke in
the butt) to get the work done and that such a poke was essential in many cases (as long as it affects someone else).

3. Crisis mode operation
Everything gets done at the end. There is a huge lull before the storm of frenzied activity at the end. Inputs tend to
come in only when a deadline looms large and there is some sort of pressure from the top. In the absence of pressure,
bid ownership is pretty low. The Bid Manager has to run from pillar to post for inputs but the inputs come in only at the
end. Often, bids are compiled in the final hours before a deadline. Quality and content of bid take a massive beating.
However, the team felt that the adrenalin rush at the end helped get the job done and the forced focus at the end also
resulted in better teamwork and concentrated productive activity.

4. Bid ownership
Other than the Bid Manager, the stakeholders do not have enough of a stake in the bid thereby the sense of ownership
is lacking. This translates to delayed responses/ responses of poor quality, iterative rework and overall sense of
frustration.

5. People interactions
Most participants concurred that good bids are essentially those that are well managed. Managers who interact well
get the job done better than those who don’t. Such managers show trust and confidence in individuals, have a sense of
humor, good understanding of the bid and also create an environment of mutual respect. On the other hand, there are
people who are intimidating, resort to pressure tactics, want to get their way all the time, consider the bid team as a
secretarial team and resort to blame games or nasty post-mortems. This impacts the overall climate and has an impact
on the bid quality.

6. Learning from the past
There seems to be no attempt to learn from past bids – good and bad. Every bid is a standalone bid – the wheel gets
reinvented. Sometimes, the past experience of customers hampers the success of the current bid. Also, there is a huge
lull pre and post bid. There is no information on how the RFP reaches the bid team and client related information is


minimum. Absence of context sometimes reflects in the bid contents. Also, what happens to the bid response is seldom
shared with the team, cutting off learning opportunities.

7. Risk-taking ability
The team felt that risk-taking ability was low from the bid team as well as BFM standpoint. Experimentation is
considered taboo. Sticking to the path of least resistance and low risk seems to ruffle the least number of feathers. In
turn, this approach leads to process monotony, lack of creativity, no attempt to generate alternative solutions/better
offers.


Appendix V

TSP Bid Management Enabling
Ideation Workshop
1. Trigger for Discussion/Ideation: In the review of the TRIZ questionnaire that the Team had filled it was mentioned that
the Bid team would like a continuous/regular customer interaction during the bid process. In this regard the trigger was
since customer can’t come can we simulate the customer inside The IT Company during the bid process.

Question for yellow hat: How can we simulate the customer during the bid response process so that we receive immediate
feedback?

2. Out of the New System Design Vs Improvement in the Existing System as the two alternative problem statements, the
team unanimously chose the New System Design option to ideate on.

Green Hat session on the New System Design

2.1 Building a Framework which would suffice the need of bid-management (Main Ingredients)

Components of the framework are – People, Knowledge Management System, Bid Management Process, Qualifications for
variation of bid management process as per context, Mechanism for ensuring right amount of energy and momentum
during the process and involvement of stakeholders.

 Right people
 Right amount of energy & momentum – This will ensure that we have a good momentum from day-one
on the bid and we don’t save all the energy for the last day.
 Right amount of involvement between the stakeholders and the team working on the bid
 Involvement includes engaging the customer also
 There is a need to have regular meetings to get heads-up as well as status of previous bids
 Knowledge management system
 Artifacts covering various aspects of bid
 Reusable components
 Customer differentiator samples
 Previous experiences with customers
 The IT Company solutions offerings
 Case-studies
 Multiple business models
 Bid management Process to control and define
 Roles and responsibilities
 Progress of the bid
 Checkpoints to validate the contents of response - are we responding according the customer
needs
 Decision making process
 The actual bid-process could vary depending on the following
 Geography
 Size of the bid
 Type/area of the bid


2.2 Understand the criticality of Bid Response and Organizational Commitment/Structure needed with Associated
Management Challenges
 Senior management mapping with customers - lacking in new or not well established accounts.
 Investment in Bid Management activities - a lot of people do this part time or because they're not on any other
active assignment. Need to put dedicated, senior people on the job.
 BDM's need strong insight into the customer priorities
 Strong Bid Managers/Ownership/empowerment to take decisions (consensus doesn't work in all cases - eg.
no/no-go for bid, pricing etc)
 Investment strategy should be finalized (customers are not looking for simple costing models and want to see
upfront investments from the vendors)
 Pre-qualify bids and only focus on strategic/key/winnable bids
 Poor quality bids should not be allowed to go out - hopefully will be a deterrent to all stakeholders – A
mechanism to assess the quality of the bid response

2.3 Organization Structure

 Bid management to be run from Onsite supported by Analyst team from offshore. Analyst team to see a 360
degree view and work on providing templates, and knowledge to support the bid strategy.

Trigger from TRIZ Inventive Principles
 By enhancing the BDM’s capability he can actually create the bid response at onsite.

3. Repeatedly there was a discussion about $100 M bids versus less than $10 M bids – the way each is treated is same,
which needs to be looked into. The question boiled down to the approach of Bid response – it was mentioned that the
bottom up approach based on number of resources needed and then doing costing is passé, the large bids need a solution
based response and costing. This Top down approach was also given as a trigger to the team for the green hat session

Green Hat Session on Top-down Approach

3.1 Building a ready-made Look-up table for WBS/resource loading
 Irrespective of 1M of 10M approach is always the same - based on work-breakdown/resource loading. This gives
comfort to BFM/Delivery heads. Past experience shows that this is mostly inaccurate. Also mostly the final
resource loading may differ 100% from the initial estimate (onsite/offshore mix, no of resources etc.) to meet the
BDM dictated prices
 We need to build ball-park figures for different solutions (e.g. basic inventory solution on product x costs amount
y). This along with appropriate dependencies and assumptions would probably be a more scientific/realistic
approach.
 The ball-park figures are to be based on past experiences. We may need to engage external consultants/domain
experts to do this. A Proposal from NB – use Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).
3.2 Vendor Relationship Management


 We need to build strong alliances with vendors so that we know what the license cost would be for a certain
solution/what hardware requirements are imposed etc.
3.3 Ensuring Clear Customer Drivers Visibility
 To make this approach work we would also need good insight into the customer drivers (cost, technology,
alliances, business risks etc)
3.4 Creating a Strong Domain Competency
 Have strong domain competency to give insight into building ‘Top down’ models
 Experience, knowledge to support the top down approach, readily available costing models, questionnaires,
Solutions menu.
3.5 Creating a Solution Menu – just like “do it yourself” Meals (Trigger from TRIZ Inventive Principle)

4. A Random TRIZ Inventive Principle Storm was conducted after the Green hat sessions. Some of the ideas are already
captured in the relevant portions above. List below is thoughts that came from Inventive principle triggers.

4.1 Soft Challenges to be responded to
 Resources Committed for longer time with more experience. We need to replace cheap resources with experienced
consultants. Currently a not-sought after role - most people work for 6-8 months as a stop-gap arrangement - in
this time-period they can't function beyond being coordinators.
 Encourage Risk Taking Cost of failure is high, inhibits people from innovating and taking risks - need to have well
established accountability for both not-winning and winning at any cost.
 Decision Making Empowerment We need strong decision making empowerment - today’s scenario is consensus
driven with nobody willing to make decisions.
4.2 Web Based Bid Writing System A web based system where the commonly asked questions are already kept with a
web interface. The current bid manager reads it and keeps it always current. Answers to each question are also
tagged with the bid response prepared for specific bids in the past.

5. Offline Discussions within PO yielded following Organizational approaches worth exploring

5.1 (TRIZ Trigger) Maximize the Effort during maximum result yielding period Thinking about what actually happens
on the ground in a typical bid creation process, the bid team typically manages to compile a bid with a flurry of activity
right at the end i.e. within highly squeezed timelines. Deadline pressure acts as a catalyst to get people to work
together in a focused manner with automatic elimination of non-value added activities. Also, team members are forced
to devote quality time to the job at hand.
 The thought is to turn this problem into strength (TRIZ Trigger). Bid teams should work in crisis mode focusing on
one bid at a time. Bid preparation can be viewed at as a game, with time as one of the key constraints. An
Illustrative example below

1. Say a bid needs to go out in 10 days.
2. Day 1 - Bid Manager identifies team. Team gets together and works on broad bid strategy. Team also evaluates the
minimum possible time in which bid can be prepared if it were a crisis situation with all team members required to


devote all their efforts towards the bid. Lets say, the team works this out as 3 days. The team blocks days 7, 8 and 9 for
this bid.
3. Day 2 - Day 6 - Bid Manager provides data for team to keep thinking about. This is a no-pressure time for the team
(for this bid) for rumination on bid strategy and approach. Other than thinking, the team will not spend any time on
this bid.
4. Days 7, 8 and 9 - The bid team gets together, preferably working in a common workplace and focuses on the bid
creation process. Different strategies can be used here for bid creation - gaming for instance.
5. Day 10 - The bid is studied for final rework and approval. Day off if the team is satisfied. :-)

5.2 Instead of single Bid Manager – create a Bid Team for each Bid
Because one bid manager needs to coordinate with delivery, BDM and horizontals, he lacks cohesion. Create a Bid Manager
and two bid coordinators. For each bid, the manager is different and coordinators are different, but from the pre sales
team. The coordinators coordinate with Delivery and Horizontals and bid manager coordinate with BDM. This results in a
structure wherein BDMs rep, Horizontals rep and Delivery rep need not be present in all meetings – the team of three bid
managers create it. Further since this happens in a specific time period if combined with 5.1, the focus the bid gets from all
three will be same as the current scenario but time is compressed. Further since the team focuses on only one bid at a time,
the quality of output will be best possible.

*****


Appendix IV

New System Design

BDM receives Bid Runs the Bid per
existing System design

Feedback
should be on
Yes basic
Is there a Forwards to parameters
SAM? SAM Bid gets over like Speed of
response,
Quality, pro-
Within 6 hours of
activeness,
No receiving the bid
communicatio
Gives feedback on a n
Forwards to Bid Team completeness,
(irrespective of whether delivery
standard template about
Flexibility etc;
team/practice is involved) each bid participant to Need to give
Primarily to discuss based his/her manager specific
on collective Expertise on examples in
Value proposition, Calls for a lessons learnt case of –ve
Bid Manager arranges for a Commercial model, feedback;
Internal Bid Strategy meet
meeting with all
Project management
approach, whom to stakeholders and Bid team
contact etc to discuss good/bad things
about the bid
Kick-off Meeting with all
stakeholders

WHAT IT SOLVES


Solves the following
issue
BDM receives Bid Runs the Bid per existing
System design
• Empowers the bid
Manager (authority
coupled with
responsibility)
• Problem of not
Yes being kept in the
Is there a Forwards to SAM loop wont be there
SAM? Bid gets over
• Could solve quality
Solves the following related issues
issue
No
• Bid arriving late to
Gives feedback on a
Forwards to Bid Team Bid Team – at the
last moment standard template about
(irrespective of whether
delivery team/practice is each bid participant to
his/her manager Solves the following
involved) issues

Solves the following issue Calls for a lessons learnt • Issue of Feedback
Bid Manager arranges for a not being
Internal Bid Strategy meet • Uses the collective expertise meeting with all incorporated
of Bid Team stakeholders and Bid team
to discuss good/bad things • Everyone in the bid
• Has a lot of ideas before the
about the bid team learns from
kick-off meeting; so able to the process
Kick-off Meeting with all add value;
stakeholders • Helps in
• Could substantially change subsequent
the image of team from bid Internal bid
coordinators to bid Managers strategy Meet

New System Design (Alternative II)

• BDM receives Bid from Client.
• Can look at KM and send first level of questions himself/herself. If KM material is not available will send it to
backend team.
• Sends out the Bid to Horizontal Pre-sales team (onsite-Geo)
• Manages the interactions between different Pre-sales teams
• Sends the response to BFM- Geo based
• Delivery teams/ Backend teams are responsible for creating/ Maintaining all Tools/ Guidelines/ costing Guides to
support BDMs.
• For Non-Standard bids/ High Value Bids the BDM sends out the Bid to Backend to respond.
Advantages:
• BDM manages response and knows what is required to “Win”
• BFM is Geo based and can manage margins within Geo
• Pre-sales teams are also geo based. Therefore can understand the customer context better
• Response time will be shorter for standard bid responses.
• Sales team can take strategy calls/ decisions faster if tools/ costing guides/standards are available.
• Consistency in response across Geo’s/ Customers/opportunities.

New System Design (Alternative III)

• Bid management team gets a Bid from the BDM.
• BM Qualifies the Bid and co-ordinates a meeting with all stakeholders for a go ahead on the Bid.
• Bid Team travels to site to liaison with the customer and undertakes the Bid management process.


• Bid team identifies Bid response team and front ends with the customer. Identifies all possible questions from the
Bid perspective and sends it to the customer. He may/may not
• take help from the technical team. A standard set of questions for all types of Bids should be readily available.
• The back up team has a Knowledge management process where all artifacts covering the following are available
• 1. Reusable components - Covering all aspects like annual results, etc
• 2. Standard SI Bids repository.
• 3. Standard ADM Bids repository
• 4. Standard BPO Bids repository.
• 5. Case studies for ADM, BPO, SI differentiated along the lines of geography and technology are identified.
• 6. Pricing solutions - BM picks up the best fit commercial model to bring maximum value to the customer.
• 7. The IT Company Differentiators
• Following are the points that the Bid team should parralley underatke along with teh Bid response
• 1. Map customer senior personnel.
• 2. Proper information about the customer price points and priorities for outsourcing should be achieved from the
customer location.


Appendix VIII

Vendor Relationship Management
(Top Down Approach)
Play with cost
1. Slightly Less Slightly More
Build the relationship by giving more cut to vendors (higher cost for The IT Company) for becoming a preferred SI

2. Prior contradiction
Pay the vendor only when we get the client money

3. Leverage volumes of Indian market. Leverage The IT Company's presence in different geographies to create a sales pitch
for our vendors.

4. Show potential and carry through on deals. Start with teaser pricing and build YOY growth - improves trust

5. Replace integrated, expensive and unused platforms with nimble products perhaps not requiring platinum reliability.
Seek low cost niche vendors, startups

Play with quantity

1. Other way round
Fix a customer-vendor tuple in a geography e.g., in Europe Vendor A is preferred; in GSM networks vendor B is preferred

2. Segmentation
Think about sub components of multiple vendors and create a new component with best performance and sell it back

3. Dynamize
Create a group of complementary vendors and make a solution grouping and keep it for solutions

4. Prior action
Pre arrange vendors in multiple geographies and create a solution map in each geo

5. Thermal expansion
Mix and match multiple vendors solutions/performance differences and create multi level solutions

6. Create multi-tier relationships for various products – For Class A customer Vendor A for Class B vendor B.

7. Try and maintain at best 2-3 vendors per domain, product area

Do something for the vendor

1. Leverage The IT Company IP Sales force for vendors

2. Continuity of Useful action


Give that this vendor product will be mentioned in atleast X number of RFP responses that THE IT COMPANY gives.
Further The IT Company will place vendor products in all marketing brochures etc.

3. Remove Tension
Become a VC fund for all vendors giving some second round or first round funding

4. Enrich
Help them becomes global vendors

5. Make vendors our clients. Provide services to them.

6. Recommend vendor to others, maybe competitors . . . Even if we lose a bid, the vendor might be able to still benefit.

7. Let the vendors interact with other vendors that we know of

8. Evangelize vendor's capability within WT. Play with the vendor's product - lot of evaluation licenses; show interest; let
WT developers ask questions

9. When vendor is growing, offer WT capabilities to enable it: people, facilities, investment, sales support, piloting and after
sales support

10. Show The IT Company potential - introduce them to other geographies specifically BDMs

11. Create solutions which both client and vendor like.

Explore Relationships

1. Other Way round
Think about ways in which vendor comes to The IT Company for relationship

2. Prior Contradiction
Look at the competitor and vendor relationship and destabilize it

3. Create multi-tier relationships
Client <---> The IT Company <---> Vendor
Client's clients, vendor's clients, clients competitiors, vendor's competitiors, client's vendors etc.
Create relationships with vendors through our clients.

4. Stay in constant touch.

5. Exchange offer
Possibility of BDM performing a vendor sales function and vedor sales rep performing BDM function here. This will help
both appreciate each other's concerns and capabilities.

6. Have joint sessions, conferences, seminars where vendor and The IT Company can come together to understand each
other.

7. As a sign of faith take them to a few sales calls


8. Show and share WT (not just TSP) business projection of near future; ask for vendor portfolio evolution

9. Let vendors build relationships with us. Make WT presence felt. Improve accessibility by advertising collaboration
opportunity that vendors are likely to see and appreciate

10. Facilitate an eBay sort of auction mechanism offering WT distribution channel. Advertise need and vendors may try to
get in on the bid. Perhaps the customers too can post needs on WT portal

11. While vendor is focused on their portfolio, strive for multi level contact across the cross section of the organizational
hierarchy: executives, sales, managers, architects and developers

Maximize benefit from vendor potential

1. If we cant play volumes, look at playing the specialization card.
e.g. startups flourish despite players like The IT Company because
 they play on niche skills
 they devise innovative solutions
 they work on future market opportunities which provides options for non-linear growth

2. Collaborate with vendors on R&D.

3. Ask vendors to promote us.
****


Appendix XI

Yellow Hat session on White Hats Issues (The Crafitti team)
TSP Bid Management Enabling Framework

Regarding Inadequate Bid Strategy

Action 1
For each bid capture following information as early as possible

1. Client Value Net – (Client Customers, Complimenters, Suppliers and Competitors)
2. The IT Company Competitors – (in the geography and with respect to specific client)
3. Client
a. Objectives
b. Key Decision makers (roles)
c. Tradeoffs (one objective affecting other objective if multiple objectives are there)
d. Drivers
e. Ideal Solution that customer want without any constraints
4. Requirements Gaps Matrix

Skills Objectives Tradeoffs Drivers
The IT Company
Existing Skills
The IT Company
can acquire
Can craft along
with partners
Gaps

5. Proposed Steps
a. Identify Gaps
b. Ideate on filling the gaps
c. Align Client Objectives and The IT Company Objectives
d. Generate multiple Courses of Action (COA)/ Solutions
e. Reduce the COA’s – Choose the relevant solution
f. Stick to the chosen approach
g. Communicate with the team
h. Create a template – after piloting – create a mandatory bid strategy document to be produced asap and
kept for the repository (Excel/PPT/Word)

Action 2
 Define components of bid
o Value
 Time
 Cost
 Functionality
 Relationships
o Critical Value
 Key customer value proposition


 Key requirements
o Competition
 Who?
 What is the competitor capable of?
 Strengths/weaknesses
o Ability
 Are we equipped to prepare bid within the timelines?
o Strengths and value additions
 What extra things do we bring to the table?
 Where are we with respect to competition?
o Readiness
 Do we have bandwidth?
 How much bandwidth do we have? Is it sufficient to come up with a good bid?
o Completeness
 Do I have all the information needed?
 Are we aware of all components of the bid?
o Necessary conditions
 Bare minimum for a good bid. Without this – no-bid.
o Sufficient conditions
 Maximum things required in a bid. No beating around the bush.
o Impact of no bid
 What do I lose if I don’t bid?

 Teaming Strategy
o What should my team composition be?
o Who does what?
o How will the team work towards final bid?

 Information Sources
o Where can I get information about various aspects of the bid?
 Customer value
 Critical to customer
 Client environment
 Competitors

Action 3

 Composition of bid team should vary depending on bid size or bid criticality:
o Not all bids should have a team composition of similar kind. For high value bids, the
team MUST consist of persons who ultimately take decisions for project go / no-go.
 Minimum bid lead time should not be less than 2 calendar days and not more than 7 calendar
days:
o There must be extreme focus when making a bid.
o Any thing less than 2 person days will not produce a quality bid.
o Anything more than 7 person days will not have the proper focus. Eleventh hour
tendency will creep in.
 Use highly professional presenter as bid front-end:


o A person with good communication skills should front end the bid rather than a high
techie who is not a good communicator.
 Entire bid team should go to customer place and be there for at least a week while bid
formulating:
o Understand the customer circumstance as much as possible before bidding.
 Do a game theory + Set based thinking before and during the before bid submission:
o Look at scenarios, especially from customer end and competitor end.

FOCUS on each bid should be the new mantra.

Regarding Lack of Common Operating Picture (COP)

1. Use Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) (rectangular DSM) for creating a common operating picture
 RFP needs Vs Horizontal/Vertical/Role/Person
 People Role Vs People Role

2. Share the DSM and evolve with the new information (Evolutionary DSM)
3. Use Visual board for each bid

Regarding Customer Value Proposition

 Get clarity of multiple perceptions from customers (use the perception mapping tool) – perceptions of people at
customer end; perceptions of people in bid team
 Find out the contradictions and tradeoffs and solve the contradictions using TRIZ Inventive Principles

Regarding lack of risk taking ability by BFM

 BFM may traditionally perceive risk to OM and thus be focused on OM protection. Additionally, BFM should
consider OM growth and/or account growth
 Let BFM build (more than one) risk reward options; BFM may seek more than one technical solution and not be
constrained by one. This puts back pressure on solution teams to incorporate set based thinking
 BFM is to proactively drive account growth - a role redefinition may be in order. At the moment financial
engineering seems to be the main activity. Account level profitability, opportunity and strategy need to be driven
with active BFM participation

Regarding relationship with customer needs to be enhanced
The key enabling factor to enhance such relationship is to build credibility, at the least through the following

 follow through on commitments; Specific deliverables, the customer is expecting either through analysis, cases,
proposals etc., the BDM needs to ensure the deliverable is timely and to the point in a manner usable by the
customer
 listen and relate; effective understanding of the customer scenario including a well rounded assessment of the
problem needs to be developed at the earliest. In this context one may indicate relevant WT expertise - carrying
out productive discussions with the intent of making the customer look good


 provide reasonable and logical proposals even at ball park level; the value propositions one makes, how
reasonable the assumptions are, the sound factual and/or experiential basis puts the BDM on a footing of
credibility. Having wayward and widely swinging arguments does dent credibility

Regarding Critical to customer (CTC) is not evaluated

 Presales and/or bid team may quickly read the customer request (RFI, RFP, RFQ) and develop a collective
assessment. Further, characterize the need in terms of key factors critical to customer
 These CTC factors may be validated through the Q&A window prior to response submission
 BDM is to validate the CTC and seek additional customer channels of validation of WT understanding of CTC
 A model based on AHP may prove fruitful in arriving at a consensus on CTC factors

Regarding Schedule squeeze

 Focused bid preparation process consuming minimum time needed. Advance planning and blocking of time for bid
preparation.
 Create templates based on timelines. Scope and detail increase based on amount of time available. Set
expectations of BDM correspondingly and unambiguously.
 Queuing and flooding evaluated for workload balancing.

< 1 day 1 page
< 5 days 10 pages
< 1 month 10 pages with attachments for
details

Regarding Delivery Capacity Constraints
 Not more than 2 bids to be handled by a team at any time:
o If there are more than two bids, then the team should queue. Having more than two bids simultaneously,
team will lose focus.

Response sent without having capability
 Be open about The IT Company's capabilities.
 Do not overtly over commit on a bid that The IT Company knows it cannot fully meet either due resource
constraint or lack of technical knowledge.

Regarding ownership of bid

 Team will have ultimate authority to make the bid:
o Only the bid team will authority to have go/no-go on bid. This makes it imperative that
bid decision maker (As noted in item 1) is part of the team.

Regarding Previous History of Bid

 Collect data from past project as to why and where The IT Company lost the bid:


o Keep a database from the past bid as to why and where The IT Company lost the bid.
Put in KM system so that such mistakes are not repeated again.


IT Services Bid Management Enabling Framework

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