2. Qualifying Opportunities
Choosing the right opportunities Establishing Requirements Developing Strategy
Opportunity Qualification
Proposal Process Management
Review Management
Managing Time, Cost and
Planning the Proposal Phase Communicating your Plan
Quality
Learning from Experience
3. Learning objectives: by the end of this
module, you will know:
why opportunity qualification is considered best practice
when should we start qualifying
what kinds of qualification tools can be used
how to present data at a qualification meeting
Syllabus Requirement
5. Opportunity Qualification is
considered best practice because:
• promotes early engagement
• provides the information you need move
forward or withdraw
• encourages competitive analysis
• consider the consequences of pursuing too
many poorly qualified bids
8. Why are we bidding?
A bid has a continued business justification
9. Why are we bidding?
A bid has a continued business justification
The Business Case ‘drives’ the bid.
It is maintained and monitored continually
but particularly at:
• Opportunity qualification
• The Go / No-go decision
• Bid project milestones / decision points
13. Bid Decision and Qualification Tools
Workbooks
Lead
Compatibility
Grid
Typical tools Bid Decision
include Trees
Checklists
Scoring systems
14. Some commonly used checklists:
SCOTSMAN MEAN ACTS
Money
Solution / Situation
Emotion
Competition Authority
Only Me Need
Time Ability
Size Competition
Time
Money Size
Authority
Need
15. Sample Go / No Go Scorecard:
Two parts:
Project Attractiveness
(Do we want to win?)
Our Capability to Win
(Can we win?)
Completed before each
review
Guide to planning and
tactics
Qualify Early, Qualify Often, Qualify Honestly
16. Qualification Meetings
• Qualification meetings (decision points) are
integral to a good proposal management
process
Pursuit Decision Preliminary Bid. BID Decision Submit Bid Approve Deal Close
Opportunity Capture Proposal Proposal
Win Case Handover
Assessment Planning Planning Preparation
RFQ Received
• Early qualification enables focus on desirable,
winnable opportunities
17. Data required for Qualification Meetings
• Customer details and requirements
• Competition details and offerings
• Capability of our organisation to meet requirements
• Cost of winning the business
• Our win strategy
• Degree of risk
• The return on our investment
Syllabus Requirement
18. Quick Quiz Question:
Opportunity Qualification
When should capture planning start??
a. Before the pursuit decision
b. After the pursuit decision
c. After the RFP is issued
d. After the bid is qualified
Please select your answer in the Polling panel.
19. How did we do?
Starting capture planning before the pursuit decision means that if the decision is
‘No’, then time and effort may have been wasted.
Capture planning is about understanding the prospect, the possible solutions to
their needs and the competition and using that understanding to create a plan for
winning the bid.
After the RFP is issued is too late to start capture planning. We need a good
understanding of the prospect by the time the RFP is issued, otherwise we are not
going to be in the best position to respond.
Qualifying or Opportunity Assessment leads to the pursuit decision, after which
Capture Planning can start.
Pursuit Decision Preliminary Bid. Bid Decision Submit Bid Approve Deal Close
Opportunity Capture Proposal Proposal
Win Case Handover
Assessment Planning Planning Preparation
RFQ Received
20. Preparing for the eTorial
The Bid Qualification Exercise:
• Review the topics ‘Bid Decisions’ and ‘Capture
Planning’ on pages 18 - 26 of the Proposal Guide
• Read the ManCo case study
• Complete the Qualification Scorecard
• Make a recommendation for a Bid Decision
• Place your work in the Class Space.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Welcome to the first session in the series of the APMP Foundation Training webinars.I’m XXX and with me is YYYIn this session we will describe:why opportunity qualification is considered best practicewhen should we start qualifying how to present data at a qualification meetingwhat kinds of qualification tools can be usedAfter this theory session we will set you a practical exercise for the first e-torial.
What I’d like you to take away from this session is that “when you choose opportunities - you ask probing questions”.Firstly, ‘can we win?’ – that is, do we have the ability to deliver what the customer wants and secondly ‘Do we want to win?’ – that may seem like a strange question, but what it means is, by winning will our organisation gain some measurable benefit, whether that be financial or improved market share or some other strategic gain.
To help us answer the questions: ‘can we win’ and ‘do we want to win?’ we are going to learn the why, when, what and how of opportunity qualification.Opportunity Qualification is a continuous activity.It starts in the Opportunity Analysis phase when we work out whether this is a piece of business worth pursuing.It continues through Capture Planning which is about developing strategies for capturing a specific business opportunityand it is key to support Bid Decisions like the final Bid/No Bid decision before Proposal DevelopmentWe should start qualifying early in the sales process and if necessary make a serious decision to pursue the opportunity or to withdraw and focus on more profitable business.In order to make recommendations we need to capture essential information to help the decision makers. We shall look in more depth at the kind of information you may be required to collect and how you could present it. We shall also discuss some tools which can help us ask the right questions, get the right information about the opportunity and present it in a factual way.By the way, you’ll notice the words “Syllabus Requirement” at the bottom left of some slides. We are just emphasizing that you’ll need to know these topics well.
Qualification impacts bottom line performance.When people ask me how I often jot these numbers on a pad or a flip chart.The yellow figure is what we hope to win REVENUEThe green is what we hope to gain PROFIT or MARGINThe RED is what we need to spend to bid. I’m sure you’ve guessed that the blue box is the Hit Rate or Win Rate. In this example it’s 25%.Some companies seem happy with that until I tell them that best in class organisations routinely achieve 70 to 80% or better.Then I’m sure you’ve spotted that on these numbers the overall contribution from bidding is ZERO.We have to do better and the key is Qualification. Rigorous qualification INCREASES WIN RATES.One more win is 200,000 on the bottom line.
It is considered to be best practice because helps to identify relevant information about the opportunity, such as customer issues, the competitive environment, approaches for implementation.Think about the consequences of going after too many poorly qualified bids. These could result unprofitable business, may overstretch your resources and damage your reputation. We will certainly benefit by qualifying the business we wish to pursue.In fact, a definition of a bid is the structured method of maximising return on sales investment when pursuing a Single Sales Objective (SSO)”This prompts some further questions such as :What are the costs?What are the rewards?What are the risks?
When we bid less we can focus our effort on the desirable, winnable opportunities.We BID LESS and WIN MORE
It’s important to keep asking a few penetrating questionsAnd to answer them honestly
Like all investments, and bidding is an investment with uncertain returns, we have to ask WHAT IS THE BUSINESS CASE?
The BUSINESS CASE drives the bid.It is the justification for the costs, the risks, the time, the hard work and lost weekends that bidding often involves.It need not be a financial case, but it has to be a real one: REPUTATION, MARKET ENTRY, POSITION, whatever.
So what sort of tools do they use? Here is a selectionAworkbook is a set of templates which prompt us to gather information and evaluate it systematically. (HOLDEN Power Based Selling – Value Guide)A Lead Compatibility Grid is used to consider each new lead in relation to your recently delivered contracts. For example, are we proposing something similar to an existing market or has a new service been requested from a market we’ve never operated in before.A Bid Decision Tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like or flowchart type of sketch to model decisions and their possible consequences, including chance outcomes, costs and resource needs. They can help to identify a map out a strategy most likely to reach a specific goal.Checklists provide a quick way of finding out whether the opportunity and our sales team have met certain basic criteria such as: have we worked with this customer before, can we validate that the customer has funding, is this our core business.Scoring systems ask deeper questions about our bidding criteria and may require scores provided to be justified.
The checklists are often known by their acronymsEach point makes a question for the prospect.A simple checklist could be Will winning the bid be value for money?Do we have the capability to build a solution?Is there competition?How are the competition positioned?
Here is an example of a Scorecard tool as used by some of Bid to Win’s customersIt has two sections: Project Attractiveness (“Do We Want to Win?”) Our Capability to Win (“Can we win?”)Answering these questions in a team setting will enable us to qualify honestly and establish vital sales action that will improve our capability to win.The bid manager must ensure that the case owner works through this.The overall score is only an indicator. It doesn’t say absolutely go or no go and a rational decision can be made to pursue the opportunity.Use the concept of SPAD – signal passed at danger! Railway’s acronym, but the case owner and team needs to support the decision and be behind you for this to work.
Bid Decisions are an integral part of any proposal management process.Here is typicalAs a bid manager you are expected
Here are some of the questions that the decision makers will probably want you to answer – so have your facts ready.Have we influenced the requirements?How well does the customer know us?Do competitors have suitable offerings?How will competitors approach this?Do we need teaming partners to share information, development costs and risks; get entry into a new marketWill winning a contract be good value for our organisation.How much risk are we exposed to.Broadly there are two types of risk – proposal risk and project/performance risk We will cover risk in more detail in a later module.When you present this information, you need to make your recommendation to bid or not to bid.Your research, your collected facts and your use of tools will all contribute.
Answer bMaybe these questions could go in the Workbook7. Which of the following is correct?a) A capture plan does not need to be written if the customer is well known to usb) Capture plans and account plans are the samec) A capture plan should be written once and signed offd) A capture plan is opportunity specific p229. Which would you NOT expect to find in a capture plan?a) Allocation of authors to sectionsb) The buying processc) The evaluation processd) Risk analysis p2434. Which is correct?a) the capture plan is written before the account planb) much of the proposal plan can be extracted from the capture planc) the capture plan should contain the bid scheduled) The gold team reviews the capture plan p26
Clarify what the end result is and refer to workbook.