Understanding the Bid Lifecycle: How to be a Bid Winner – 16th March 2016, QE II Centre, London
Our partners at Bid Academy have announced details of a fantastic event on 16th March: Understanding the Bid Lifecycle: How to be a Bid Winner. This full-day event breaks down the Bid Lifecycle into its key phases and looks at how you can improve your chances of winning at each phase. All guest speakers are experienced Bid professionals and will discuss lessons learned from real life bids. Whilst Bid Academy’s interpretation of the Bid Lifecycle differs slightly from Bid Solutions‘, we have a shared passion in engaging bid and proposal professionals earlier in the cycle and improving their chances of winning.
Full details: Understanding the Bid Lifecycle & How to be a Bid Winner
Click here to book your place.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Construction and Rail Industry Round-up
A number of large projects have been won this week in the Construction and Rail industry including:
Carillion has been named as South London’s Lambeth College development partner for a major new college complex in Vauxhall worth £120m. At present, the plan is to build a specialist Lambeth College Skills Centre for vocational learning and potentially including a training hotel, restaurant, and conferencing facilities.
Galliard Construction has been confirmed as the principal contractor for Developer Sager’s £400m Islington Square development. Demolition and site clearance is currently underway and the fit out of new tenant facilities will begin in early 2017 and due for completion late 2017.
A re-signalling contract worth £34.5m for signalling between the seven main stations from Ferriby to Gilberdyke in the East Riding of Yorkshire has been awarded to joint venture agreement Ansaldo STS and Linbrooke Services.
Also this week, construction begins on Europe’s biggest floating solar panel project in London Queen Elizabeth II reservoir. The installation will be eight football pitches worth of photovoltaic (PV) panels to help Thames Water meet its target of generating a third of its own energy by 2020.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Will government action finally bring an end to the gender pay gap in the Bid and Proposal profession?
In the 2015 Salary Survey we highlighted the significant pay discrepancies between men and women. When taking an average across all roles, men earned 24% more than women (the difference was 29% in the 2012 Survey).
Whilst some of the discrepancies were smaller when we analysed specific roles within our profession, the overall gulf in pay inequality could not be ignored.
Naturally, we are delighted to see that the government is finally taking gender pay issues seriously. Whilst only a first step, we believe its plans to force large employers to reveal the number of men and women in each pay range and show where pay gaps are at their widest is at least a step in the right direction.
Government Requirements to Address the Gender Pay Gap
From April 2018, employers (with more than 250 employees) will be required to publish their gender pay gap on their websites. They will have to report every year and senior executives will be expected to be accountable for the numbers.
There are of course many factors that can affect pay so this is by no means a guarantee of attaining parity. However, we hope this positive change will accelerate change towards a fairer and more transparent pay system.
To understand how gender can affect pay across roles in our profession, please refer to our salary benchmarking tool.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
John Fernau joins the Sixfold Team
Our partners at Sixfold International welcomed John Fernau to their team last week.
John is a senior commercial leader with extensive experience of public procurement and major sporting events. John started his career in international development procurement with Crown Agents before moving on to became a management consultant with Hedra (now Mouchel) and advised on procurement in local and central government.
Whilst a consultant, John began working at the Olympic Delivery Authority and became permanent. In 2009 he became the Head of Procurement and led the delivery of a huge range of procurements including on and off park construction, park-wide logistics and security, transport, security, and other corporate professional services.
After the Games in 2012, John became the Commercial Director of the Home Office, managing a spend of £2.8bn pa, with a team of 220.
In 2014 John left the Home Office to found Fernau Solutions, a consultancy which helps SMEs to successfully navigate public sector procurement.
John will make a fantastic addition to the Sixfold team and we look forward to working with him.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Contract wins for J. Murphy, Admore and McAleer & Rushe
2015 was reported to be a particularly bad year for the construction industry, however, industry experts forecast a positive outlook for the construction industry in 2016. We have already seen large contract wins for J. Murphy who has won the £60m London Overground electrification project that will electrify the London Overground route from Gospel Oak to Barking. Admore has also been awarded an £80m contract to be the main contractor at the first phase of Project Light by Notting Hill Housing and Sellar Developments and McAleer & Rushe have won multi-million-pound deals in Belfast, Portsmouth and Stansted.
Do you work in the Construction industry, have you noticed an uplift this year in comparison to last year?
Murphy & Sons win £60m London Overground electrification project from Gospel Oak to Barking:
http://www.murphygroup.co.uk/news/murphy-wins-60mplus-london-overground-electrification-project/
Ardmore announced as main contractor at Project Light Phase 1:
http://www.ardmoregroup.co.uk/2016/ardmore-announced-as-main-contractor-at-project-light-phase-1/
McAleer & Rushe win deals in Belfast, Portsmouth and Stansted :
http://www.mcaleer-rushe.co.uk/
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
Bowie and Benchmarking
On the morning of his sixty-sixth birthday, David Bowie released the song ‘Where are we now?’
I played it the other day as I was reflecting on his music and it struck a chord. This question was at the heart of a recent discussion with an organisation looking for ways to improve their win rates in the new financial year.
Like many organisations, the leaders want the results, the benefits, the outcomes –increased capability, more motivation and improved win rates. They just want to get on with it. There is no time to lose, Carpe Diem, Tempus Fugit and all that. They want improved win rates and they want them now.
The frustration with the status quo and the enthusiasm to get going is palpable. And when there is so much energy focused on driving forward, it can be hard to put the brakes on.
But knowing what to do is not the same as knowing how to do it and, more importantly, how to do it in a way that sticks.
Making change stick is possible only when organisations understand the underlying principles at play. When they do understand, it can be a light bulb moment.
Understanding Change Management
In his book ‘The Primes – How any group can solve any problem’, Chris McGoff describes the core principles relating to change. If an organisation is to successfully carry out and embed change, stakeholders must be part of the programme which not only plans where they are going (the To-Be) but identifies their starting point (the As-Is).
Without parity of time spent on agreeing the As-Is and planning the To-Be, programmes will not generate enough buy-in to convince stakeholders that the pain of change is worthwhile. Without buy-in, stakeholders will exhibit low-levels of engagement, they will focus on other priorities, and the project-of-the-month will die a slow, painful and inevitable death.
Benchmarking is a solution that can engage every stakeholder in articulating the As-Is in terms of the good practice that is worth keeping, and the specific improvements needed. Giving every stakeholder the opportunity to influence the To-Be solution by asking about their priorities during the benchmarking exercise also generates vital buy-in to the programme.
So, if we are to engage people in change programmes and make them stick, we really do need to explore and agree ‘Where are we now?’
For as Bowie says:
‘Where are we now, where are we now?
The moment you know, you know, you know’
Bid Management and Rock & Roll, whatever next…?
Author: Ian Sherwood PPM.APMP Bid & Proposals Director, twentysix2
Image Ref: The Primes by Chris McGoff. Published Wiley & Sons (2012) used with kind permission from the author.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
New eLearning package to help prevent bid-rigging within the public sector
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) joined forces to create a new eLearning package to help identify and prevent bid-rigging within the public sector. The package will support more than 4000 central government procurers unearth attempts to win contracts through anti-competitive conduct.
Evidence suggests that there was up to 30% overcharge in 2013/14, costing the taxpayers millions of pounds.
Rigging a Public Sector Bid
Bid-rigging involves competing businesses which are invited to bid in competitive tenders secretly colluding so that contrary to appearances, they are not fully competing for the contract. Bid-rigging tends to drive up prices by removing genuine competition between bidders.
It is a serious infringement of competition law, which can lead to fines and liability to damages for the companies involved. It can also result in criminal sanctions (including possible imprisonment) for individuals.
The e-learning module is available through the CCS hub. Public procurers who do not have access to the hub can email training@crowncommercial.gov.uk and request to be set up on the learning hub.
The module, which is intended to take no more than 40 minutes to complete, will help students to gain an awareness of why bid-rigging is harmful, what kinds of activities and patterns of behaviour they should watch out for, what they can do to mitigate risks and where they can go to get help if they suspect a case.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/public-procurers-learn-how-to-spot-bid-rigging
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
The Bid Lifecycle Model & Our Evolving Profession
In 2011, we developed the Bid Lifecycle Model to enable wider discussion regarding the 6 core roles in our profession and how they interact and complement each other in a live bid / proposal situation.
It was used as the basis for generating accurate salary benchmarking for the 2012 Salary Survey and was accepted by the APMP UK. It was also a central theme in the 2015 Bid Solutions Salary Survey.
The primary discussion point from the Bid Lifecycle Model was and still is today, what is the core difference between a Bid Manager and a Proposal Manager? You can read my personal views on this here.
The reason for this post is to bring the discussion up-to-date with current market conditions. Our profession is rapidly evolving and maturing and I’m keen to understand how your role is being affected?
Bid Manager or Proposal Manager?
In some industries, we see the boundaries between Bid Managers and Proposal Managers becoming increasingly blurred. In others, we see the focus shifting away from hiring Bid and Proposal Managers to hiring Proposal Writers to directly support Sales teams. Do you even use the term ‘Bid’ or ‘Proposal’?
With the arrival of the Apprenticeship Scheme and the global adoption of the APMP Certification Programme, is the Bid Lifecycle Model (and its 6 core roles) still relevant in your industry? Is its scope too narrow? Is it over-simplistic? Does it translate internationally?
I am well aware that there is still no universal agreement on titles, roles, and responsibilities. Whilst APMP has made some headway in resolving this, it is a voice that speaks mostly for its members, not the entire profession. Only this week I have stumbled across another organisation claiming to be the global community of practice for everyone involved in the world of proposals, bids, and tenders. Hence, harmonisation of language and understanding across our profession still seems some way off.
In my opinion, all roles have the ability to win or lose you the deal. Some require more experience, but you should never underestimate the importance of each role’s contribution.
Click here if you would like more details of our Bid Lifecycle Model or click here if you would like to take our Bid Lifecycle Challenge.
Author: Martin Smith, Managing Director – Bid Solutions.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is now in effect
The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is now in effect and becomes a standard form for part of the Public Sector tendering selection process.
The Public Contracts Regulations requires a contracting authority to accept an ESPD from bidders as part of the selection process to reduce the administrative burden on bidders and the authority by simplifying the manner in which information and evidence is provided at the selection stage.
What is the European Single Procurement Document?
The ESPD is essentially a form of self-certification that the bidder does not fall within any of the listed grounds for exclusion and has the necessary financial resilience and technical and professional ability to perform the contract. The intention is to reduce the amount of documentation required from bidders at an early stage in the competition by avoiding the need for bidders to submit evidence and documentation in support of the ESPD statements.
Of course the door is still open for the contracting authority to see this evidence at any point where it is necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the process. However, it is likely that the contracting authority will not need this, except for the evidence from the bidder who has been nominated to be awarded the contract. The winning bidder will have to produce the documents.
The European Commission recently published the standard form for the ESPD. As of yesterday, 26th January 2016, in England and Wales contracting authorities must accept the ESPD from bidders as evidence, instead of certificates issued by public bodies or third parties (e.g. banks) to confirm that the bidder:
- Is not in breach of one of the mandatory or discretionary exclusion criteria.
- Meets the selection criteria set out at Regulation 58 (suitability to perform the contract, economic and financial standing and technical and professional ability).
- Where applicable, meets the criteria that the contracting authority is intending to apply to reduce the numbers who are invited to bid (e.g. for the Restricted procedure).
The Implementing Regulation states that procurement documents must reference what information the ESPD requires and that the ESPDs must be submitted with the tender in an Open Procedures and with the Request to Participate in others.
Author: Andrew Haigh PPM APMP, Director and Public Sector Bid Consultant at Sixfold International Ltd
If you receive an Invitation to Tender for a Public Sector contract which is worded in such a way as to prevent the appropriate information being submitted as an ESPD, please call us on 01227 860375 and we should be able to advise you on what you need to do to get the requirements altered.
To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.
APMP Foundation Training in Leeds on 8th March
Our partners at Strategic Proposals have announced that in addition to the London course they will be running APMP Foundation training in Leeds on 8th March.
Demand for APMP certified candidates is increasing so don’t miss out on your chance to develop your existing skills and gain professional accreditation.
Discount on APMP Foundation Training
You can complete the course for a special discounted rate of £455 + VAT. This rate assumes candidates have an APMP membership. Candidates will also require a copy of APMP’s Proposal Guide textbook (£55 + VAT).
If you are interested in finding out more please contact the team on 020 8158 3952.
