This week I am responding to two “evaluation” documents. As tenders go, these ones are relatively light, but they have reminded me of why I hate doing tender responses (and I’m not even doing most of the work!) The first document was a classic example of being sent through Friday morning, with a request for a response by Wednesday. I don’t know many sales teams who are sitting around with nothing to do, or that don’t have meetings typically booked 1 to 2 weeks ahead, yet tenders seem to invariably arrive at the last minute (and often just before a holiday period).
I’ll start with a rant to get things off my chest. Please feel free to skip the rant and scroll down to my 3 Guidelines for Tender Responses, where I focus on practical tips.
{Start Rant}
Tenders are a huge time sink, for both the customer and the vendors. For a start, they take a huge amount of effort for the customer to define their requirements and create all the documentation, and then more effort to go through the review and evaluation process. I’m pretty sure the staff working on the tender also have day jobs that demand their attention while this is going on. For vendors they are costly to respond to, involving multiple people who often work overtime to meet the short deadlines. There might be 3, 5 or even 10 vendors all working hard, with hope in their hearts, when in fact the customer already has a preferred vendor and are just “getting through the process”. So the ROI for doing tender responses is typically not great. But as vendors, they are emotionally hard to ignore or to qualify out of.
After all that effort, tender documents can often end up as a laundry list of requirements given by different teams, rather than a strategic, cohesive document. This increases the effort taken to respond, makes it harder for the customer to properly evaluate and compare all the vendors, and is not realistic about the path forward. I have seen too many examples where the reality of implementation falls well short of the requirements that were evaluated. There may be 100 “mandatory” requirements listed in the tender, but 3 years later the customer is only using 5 core capabilities. And all the vendors that were evaluated could have delivered those 5. So why go through such a costly and difficult process?
The principle behind going to market might be admirable, but how many tenders really meet the objective of diligence and governance that they are meant to? As a vendor working with a prospect, we’ll always try to find ways to avoid a tender process. Perhaps by staying below a price threshold (most common) or building on an existing agreement. We’ll also offer to help create the requirements, in order to plant those items which will favor us.(and we want to get in there before our competitor does the same thing). I have also seen customer staff doing their best to get around or shortcut the process (while still working within the rules), because it slows things down and often does not change the outcome. All too often, the price ends up with the highest weighting in the evaluation criteria, which devalues all the effort that has gone into both creating and answering the detailed requirements.
The whole tender process is inefficient and the ROI is poor for both customers and vendors. It’s not just the labour cost of the effort expended by all parties. The longer it takes to do an evaluation and get started, the higher the cost of delay that is being incurred by the customer, which works against the benefits that will be delivered by the new solution.
You can validly ask at this point, “what I would do differently?” I do believe governance is important. Within any organization or process, it is critical to have checks and balances, and levels of approval and oversight related to spending decisions. However, after all the paperwork is done, I feel like purchasing decisions are typically made based on relationships, price and confidence that you can deliver. Yes there will be differences in features and functions between vendors, and they may take a different approach to solving a given problem, but broadly speaking vendors are usually offering similar capabilities that will meet the customer’s core needs.
The differentiators between products should be clear from a demo, a reference call and a discussion, without the need to write and score lots of detailed requirements. I’d prefer buyers to focus on a few “big rock” key capabilities that they evaluate, and to have them focus on the differentiators and exceptions in an interactive discussion with each vendor. A short 1-page checklist or scoring model that evaluators can complete and then compare should be sufficient, and would save everyone a lot of work and time.
{End Rant}
3 Guidelines for Tender Responses
Tenders are a fact of life when you are in Presales. So apart from ranting, what are some practical suggestions I can offer? Here are 3 guiding principles, with some tips for each.
- Don’t make the customer work hard
- Don’t be fully compliant
- Share the load, smartly
#1 Don’t Make the Customer Work Hard
- Summarise your answer (and how you have interpreted the requirement) in a few sentences. Use bullet points
- Crop and Zoom a screenshot to highlight a portion of the screen and make it readable
- Screen shots can make you stand out. Even if they haven’t been asked for, add some in anyway to illustrate how you address a requirement. Use attractive screen shots only.
- Make images big enough to see. Expand the size of the table or row if needed, rather than pasting a thumbprint-sized image
- Use links to flyers or data sheets sparingly. If the detail is all in a public datasheet, I agree there is no sense in copying it all into the response document. However, it’s still important to summarize your answer before linking
- Never ever link to an Instruction Manual, where the reader has to click a link, open a document, then search for the answer. Don’t do it! Simply provide a summary sentence to confirm that you address the requirement.
#2 Don’t be Fully Compliant
- If you answer Yes to everything, the customer will be suspicious
- If you answer “No” or “Partially” that builds credibility
- The customer will spend more time reading the “Partially Complies” and “Does Not Comply” responses. Focus on answering these in more detail, and putting your spin on how you still address the business problem
- Review compliance early, before adding the text answers. If you don’t comply with enough requirements, qualify out of the opportunity and avoid wasted effort (or maybe spend your effort on a simpler non-compliant response)
- Requirements and Responses are both open to interpretation. Summarise your interpretation in the answer. Even if you have not answered the actual question that was asked, you have indicated why, and have an opportunity to reinforce a key message.
#3 Share the Load, smartly
- Review solution fit and compliance early and discuss as a team. If needed, qualify out before expending additional effort
- Assign roles within the team for each section (and even each question) of the response
- Avoid emailing around document versions that can get out of sync. Use a shared document or collaboration tool (eg. OneDrive, Teams, Google Docs)
- Turn on Track Changes in MS Word and get familiar with adding Review Comments
- Hold regular checkpoints (every 1-3 days) to confirm progress, keep the team focused and identify any issues or gaps
- Allow enough time for a final review and editing, and be clear on who is responsible for the final document
What are your top tips for responding to tenders?
Thoughtful Presales 