Jean Roberts

If you are winning 40% of your quotes and tenders, you are doing so at the cost of 100% of your effort.    This Checklist will guide you through your internal procedures, starting with your attitude and behaviour towards these core business functions:

1. The aim of quoting and tendering is to be and remain supplier of choice
2. Identify your (i) target market, and (ii) unique selling point which is not just what you produce, create or provide – it includes the impact and benefit of what you produce, create or provide to purchasers
3. Identify your strategic priorities – to ensure the Company’s viability, sustainability and credibility
4. Quoting/tendering are accepted and treated as a core business function to achieve measurable improvements, viz:
   • increase your strike/success rate through quoting/tendering,
   • decrease the real cost to your Company of quoting/tendering, and
   • increase your organisation’s revenue/profit/market share through quoting/tendering
5. Appointment of a quote/tender writing team to commence process of preparation
6. Project development:
   • plan for compliance with all specifications and requirements,
   • consider your best offer – which should include an ‘added value’ over and above their expectation
   • carefully negotiate agreements with your own suppliers or sub-contractors, and
   • treat quality and risk as ‘two sides of the one coin’
7. Prepare and package the quote/tender document, following the endorsed ‘corporate style’
8. Lodge the document in accordance with their stated requirements
9. Responsibly negotiate to win the job/contract
10. ORDER NUMBER/CONTRACT CONFIRMED
11. Commence procedures to fulfil the order, or to manufacture, supply, deliver/install according to the contract
12. Project management throughout the transaction or contract period to ensure:
    • that what you are delivering is what you have agreed or contracted to deliver,
    • that your organisation ‘s integrity and reputation are enhanced throughout the transaction or contract period, and
    • that your relationship with this client is, and remains, positive
13. Payment schedule is carefully monitored
14. Completion has three possibilities:
    • According to plan – which positions your Company for repeat orders or opportunities,
    • With variations – back on track through renegotiation, with possible repeat orders or opportunities, or
    • Failure for whatever reason, allocation of faulty, penalty – with possible black-listing for repeat orders or opportunities, therefore requiring urgent relationship re-building

Each of these three ‘completion possibilities’ indicates a next step:

1. if a quote or tender goes through to completion according to plan, you need to know and understand why it did, and do everything in your power to incorporate these success factors into your internal procedures,
2. if a quote or tender goes through to completion with variations, you need to check your initial procedures to see if these variations were the result of incorrect or inadequate calculations, procedures - or a lapse in individual or team performance or availability,
3. if a quote or tender fails to go through to completion, you have a lot of work to do:  start by checking the faults and penalties, and linking these back to any likely internal causal or contributing factors:
   • where you have control over the internal factors, you have the potential to remedy them,
   • where you only have influence over the internal factors, you have potential to exert your influence - which may or may not be sufficient to introduce changes,
   • where you have neither control of influence over internal factors, you have potential to display your entrepreneurial flair by focusing on the first step in this Checklist – and attempt to address the organisation’s inappropriate attitude or behaviour toward quoting and tendering.