Tender Writing

One of the most important and often overlooked steps in the tender writing process is the planning of your proposal and the arguments supporting it.

It is not uncommon for tender writers to go straight to the response schedule without first examining other relevant sections in the document. Don’t forget that information critical to your bid may be scattered throughout the RFP document in sections relating to selection criteria, pricing, scope of works and even contractual requirements.

It is critical to study the evaluation criteria including the weighting assigned to each criterion as this will be an invaluable guide on what to emphasize in your proposal. It is also important to closely examine the statement of requirement because the narrative you provide in response will largely determine the success of your proposal (assuming you comply with the basic requirements of the tender and your pricing structure is reasonable).

Once you have read through the proposal in detail it’s important to prepare a proposal timeline to ensure the RFP is completed on time. This step is best done with a team of peers, colleagues and stakeholders because it is rare that a successful proposal will be prepared by an individual, without input from other team members. In preparing a timeline work backwards from the proposal date leaving plenty of time for copying, binding and delivering the proposal (including considering any electronic submission requirements). Also bear in mind that not all members of the tender writing team will have equal time to devote to the proposal because of their varying day to day work requirements, so perhaps assign an overall project co-ordinator to help ensure you stick to the timeline.