Case Study – Bid Review Service

With a number of large and must-win contracts due out for re-tender, this client required a comprehensive review of past submissions to assess their standards of response, undertake a critical analysis of scoring and identify areas for improvement for future bids. In particular, they were keen to use our expertise to understand their writing style, structure, visual presentation, compliance, solution attractiveness and innovation.

Our approach was to thoroughly read the tender documents for each bid, understand the ultimate client, tender scope and submission requirements creating an initial summary of observations to guide us through the reviews. An edited version of each quality submission response was annotated with comments and feedback, easily cross referenced back to the original text with an additional extracted version supplied. A Content Review Report was then created to summarise the issues, the risk they have on the bid and Pipster suggestions for improvement.

For example, “Current / future tense – the risk is that your client doesn’t know your future intentions. Instead of “We are” you need to be more “We will” as this contract hasn’t started yet. It is great to reference the work and approach you take, but remember you are bidding for a new contract – they want to know your approach”.

In addition, Pipster also offered a Format Review. This captured comments on the bid’s appearance, to assist the client in improving the way their bids can be visually presented. This included pointers on following sub-headings, positive use of brand colouring, strength of evidence and grammatical accuracy.

Finally, a summary of bid improvements provided the client with a strong, impactful list of positive actions to take, to take their future tender submissions to a higher level, improve scoring and ultimately help them to win work.