In tough economic times it’s tempting to lay low, cut costs and ‘hope for the best’.  Yet is cutting business development to meet short-term financial objectives at the risk of losing market share to your competitors worth the gamble?
If you need convincing, there have been numerous studies undertaken which all point to the same conclusion: Companies that maintain their business development during a downturn when their competitors are cutting back can actually improve their market share and return on investment at a lower cost than during good economic times.
So how can companies continue to grow revenue, cut costs and stave off competition – all the while keeping their clients happy?  It’s a big ask, but tough times call for many companies to think differently about their business development activities.
Here’s eight tips to get you thinking:

Take advantage of less competition.  The benefit of business development in a downturn is less noise.  Reduced spending across the board usually means that the competitive marketplace has grown quieter, presenting you with a great opportunity to cut through the clutter to market your services to a captive audience.  Freshen up your marketing materials including your website.
Think non-traditional. If your business development or marketing budget is reduced, don’t feel as though your role has become redundant. Sometimes industry professionals simply need to become both more creative and measurable with their campaigns. Consider making the shift from business to business selling to business to government selling (see 3).
Respond to tenders. Securing public sector contracts through competitive tendering is a great way to recession-proof your business since many contracts run for a minimum of three years.  If you don’t think you are tender-ready, invest in a consultant who can audit and document your company’s processes, coach, train or mentor your staff in how to run the tender process, help you develop a bid content library and provide direction on how to best position your company and its solutions to win the tender.
Top of mind awareness, bottom line results. This is the time to get your brand noticed to accelerate growth while your competitors go into hiding.  While you might have to pull back on some things, you can still stay visible by shifting your marketing spend – get out there to promote your thought leadership, employees’ achievements or corporate social responsibility. When firms can’t compete on service or products alone, often it’s the people and their knowledge, expertise or visionary leadership that can set them apart. People are hungry to learn, to innovate and be inspired by others in this climate.
Don’t stagnate, innovate. When times are good we’re usually so busy ‘servicing’ that we have little time to pause and look at our own business model. Take the time to analyse your business development and account plans, strengthen internal processes and identify niche opportunities.
Research your clients. Many companies never invest the time to review their value to clients and use this information to help grow their firm profitably for the future. Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how clients are defining value and responding to the downturn. Do some analysis on why your clients use you over your competitors. Who are your most profitable clients? What type of work are you performing for them? What is the growth potential of your existing clients and how can you profile future potential profitable clients?  If you can’t answer these questions you won’t be able to adapt and respond to clients’ shifting priorities.
Service is king. Even in hard times, not everyone shops on price alone. Be responsive and exceed your clients’ expectations. Service excellence strategies are important not only to outperform competitors, but to improve staff morale.  Start by asking staff for their input into how your company can improve client-facing service and communication. By engaging the workforce you will get better buy-in, ideas and ownership of the initiative. If yours is the company that is known for adding value rather than cutting back, your brand will be positioned to fly higher than ever when the economy picks up.
Maintain relationships with loyal clients. When times are slow it’s time to rekindle strategic relationships.  Continue to network. Visit their offices. Take them to coffee.  Face to face time is invaluable to building rapport.  In tough times companies sometimes reduce their training budgets. Offer free training sessions that are relevant and timely to their needs – you’ll be surprised by what kind of goodwill and word of mouth marketing you can build by offering value added service.

Remember, if you view economic uncertainty as an opportunity to be creative and to transform or expand while competitors pull back, you can thrive, not just survive, in these turbulent times. The real mind shift is to look at your business development and marketing dollars as an investment, not an expense.
 

There’s an old saying that preparedness ensures success and unpreparedness spells failure. Without prior planning and preparation, it is difficult for any activity to achieve the expected success, and the same is true for bidding activities.
In public bidding, procurement requirements are often vague, while technical requirements, field conditions and other market factors are largely unknown.
The goal of pre-planning in the bidding process, therefore, is to better understand the risks you would face and the implications for your business if your tender was accepted.  Bidding risks can also include uncertainties around project requirements, scope, budget, and timelines, as well as market competition and the bidder’s capabilities.
Bidders need to analyse and manage these risks to ensure that their bids are competitive and profitable, while minimising the potential for unforeseen challenges that could arise during the project delivery.
Risk management in bidding is sometimes confused with risk-taking, which focuses only on short-term wins.
Risk taking to ”win the bid” has its own price, which is often the hidden and unpredictable cost that may eventually cause budget or project overruns, and ultimately, project failure.
Failure to plan for risks could open the door to many issues during the delivery phase.  Understanding planned and unplanned risks, and having a process for managing them in the pre-bid phase can also unlock valuable insights that can be used not just for making a bid/no bid decisions, but this can be used to design solutions to meet unique customer requirements; or to articulate method statements that highlight your ability to manage and overcome challenges; as well as driving more effective contract negotiations.
Planning for project and client risks
Risk assessments are a major part of the bidding process, but this step is often rushed or overlooked in favour of the more exciting and visible aspects of bid project management.  A bidder’s openness to be open and honest about risks and how you plan to manage them shows a buyer that you’re a mature bidding organisation with a commitment to delivering better outcomes.  The first step in conducting a risk assessment is risk identification. Interviewing project stakeholders, reviewing documentation, analysing previous opportunities, and sharing lessons learned on previous projects are ways to secure buy-in early in the process.
Bringing your stakeholders together to brainstorm innovative ideas on how to manage these risks can make all the difference to a winning or losing bid. Examples of project and client risks include:

Competition: Bidding involves competing against other companies, which can lead to pricing wars and low profit margins, and the obvious loss of business.
Scope creep: Projects that expand beyond the original requirements can result in cost-blow out, delays and reduced quality. Scope creep is a risk if the project’s requirements are not clearly defined, or if the client’s needs change during the project.
Cost estimation: Accurately estimating the cost of a project is crucial for bidding, bit it can be challenging to be absolutely accurate. If the estimate is too high, there’s the risk of losing the bid. If the estimate is too low, the business may end up losing money on the project or risk leaving money on the table.
Resource availability: Bidding for a project may require a business to commit resources, such as key personnel and equipment, to the project. If these resources are not available when needed (especially if there’s project cross-over or delays on other projects), it can cause further delays and quality issues.
Contractual: Once a bid is accepted if the contract is not well-drafted it can lead to the deadly ‘’three D’s’’ – disputes, delays and debt.
Reputation: Winning a bid and delivering a project that fails to meet a client’s requirements can cause reputational damage. If the business has a history of delivering poor quality work or missing deliverables, it may struggle to win future bids.

Planning for unforeseen external risks
Another significant benefit of conducting risk assessments early on in the bid process is that it can identify potential roadblocks, such as regulatory requirements, environmental concerns, or labour shortages. Armed with this information, companies can develop contingency plans and mitigation strategies to reduce the likelihood of delays, cost overruns, and other project setbacks.
Examples of unforeseen external risks:

Cultural: Communication and collaboration between the buyer and supplier can impact on the success of a project or services contract. When barriers exist, this can lead to misunderstandings, delays and quality issues.
Legal and regulatory: Outsourcing involves transferring sensitive data or information to another company. This can raise legal and regulatory compliance concerns, such as data privacy laws, intellectual property rights, and export control regulations to name a few. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines, lawsuits, and reputational damage.
Contractor stability: Financial stability, expertise and ability to deliver on time and budget are key risks in the outsourcing of projects and services. If a contractor experiences financial difficulties, changes ownership, or fails to meet their obligations, it can cause delays, quality issues, and potentially, project failure.
Supply chain disruptions: Suppliers may rely on a complex supply chain of vendors, subcontractors and partners. Any disruption in the supply chain, such as a shortage of raw materials or delays in shipping, can impact the project’s timeline and budget.

Conclusion
Many bidders place too much focus on pricing or the value of their solution and miss the opportunity to identify risks that they know are important to the client. By incorporating risk assessments into the bidding process early, companies can deliver more accurate budget estimations and project delivery timelines, along with strategies to reduce risk that are operationally, politically or strategically important to the client.
With a process in place to identify and analyse risks, teams can submit bids that are more accurate and creative, and with a team that is more informed and confident. Importantly, by avoiding project failures and setbacks, companies can protect their reputation and maintain the trust of their customers and partners, which can lead to more business opportunities in the future.

Introducing notes to Bidhive: Quickly share and disseminate information to all stakeholders on a bid opportunity
Information dissemination tools are critical to success in fast-paced organisations striving to win new business from the competition. Once you’re in the thick of a time-sensitive bid, the purpose of bid team communication is to quickly provide valuable new information, clarify goals, strengthen accountability, and prevent misunderstandings.
But where do you keep track of industry briefing details, all the Addendum, clarification questions, and even interactions with the procurement department? 
Team meetings, water cooler chats or scattered emails are no longer the only or best way of communicating urgent information to bid teams.
Now’s there’s a faster and more efficient way to communicate on the fly: a note-taking feature built directly into your central bid system, making your notes easily accessible to all your teammates.
Establishing a formal communication chain
Email and Microsoft Teams is still a mainstay of office communication, but important bid information can easily be overlooked in the clutter.
A formal communication chain is the foundation of a successful bid or proposal, and it’s all about getting the right information to the right people at the right time. It’s also important to have one central location where bid and proposal communication can be found.  The Bidhive platform makes it easier for bid managers, writers and subject matter experts to access the latest bid details and updates. Examples include communicating:

Extensions or changes in bid requirements
Clarification questions and answers
Addenda, bid decisions and debrief follow-ups
Post-bid customer feedback.

While the Bid Manager is typically the main point of contact for bid updates, collaboration tools now make it possible to centrally record, automatically notify, and share bid-related notes in real time. Additionally, while bid planning ensures you’re on track to meet set milestones and the hard deadline, keeping running notes against a bid also ensures compliance with the seemingly never-ending influx of updates, changes and requests that occur. Centrally recording notes against your bid also shows your team that you’re willing to have open dialogue, while making team members feel informed, respected and appreciated.
Now keeping Notes in Bidhive can reduce risks
By analyzing historical bid data and trends, a central bid system like Bidhive can provide valuable insights that can be used to improve future bids and increase your company’s win rate. Recording notes against bids and making this sharable across the team also helps to:

Improve clarity: Notes can provide additional context, clarification, or elaboration on specific aspects of the bid.
Better collaboration: Notes can facilitate communication and collaboration among team members involved in the bidding process, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
Increased transparency: Notes can make the bid more transparent by providing insight into the thought process and decision-making at each stage or phase of a bid.
Better record-keeping: Notes can serve as a record of the bid preparation process, providing a history of the bid that can be referred to in the future.
Enhanced accountability: Notes can help hold team members accountable by providing a time and date-stamped record of their contributions and actions during the bidding process.
Improved proposal quality: Notes can help ensure that the bid is complete and accurate, leading to a higher-quality proposal and reducing non-compliance.

Just as a sales CRM can attach notes to a specific lead, opportunity or deal, Bidhive can also attach notes and messages at the bid, activity, tasks and collaborative editing level, helping to make bidding more organised, effective and compliant. And as most bidders can attest – if your communication flows smoothly, so will your bid.

To achieve a competitive advantage in bidding, it is essential to have accurate, complete, and well-organized data that can be leveraged to identify patterns and insights, and inform strategic decisions. Companies should invest in data management strategies and tools to ensure that their data is complete, accurate, and well-organized, which can help them to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Having a central bid system provides a solid data foundation for your company’s contract tenders, and is the platform your team relies on to win them. By analyzing historical data, contractors bidding for work can strategically select projects to bid on, estimate more accurately, and demonstrate success to clients.
Technology is crucial for collecting, organizing, and accessing data in a streamlined manner. Contractors bidding for work should choose software with convenient features like real-time data access of their customer’s bidding history,  bid outcomes, the process it followed, and any project or contract related data that could inform future decisions or strategies.
Without centralised systems to run a bidding process, information gets lots in silos, and knowledge transfer is at risk of being poorly executed.  In fact, a study by FMI Research among construction industry contractors found that 35% of time is spent searching for data and project information, and that “bad data” – data that is inaccurate, incomplete, inaccessible, inconsistent or untimely, which can’t be used to derive actionable insights – may have cost the global construction industry $1.85 trillion in 2020.
By having data all in one place contractors can avoid wasting time transferring information between spreadsheets, deciphering hastily scribbled field notes, or digging through inboxes. Here’s some examples of how centralised bidding data can help you win the right bids.
Where can we find opportunities? 
Accessing tender opportunities is the first step in the bid process. There are literally thousands of tender portals worldwide and in the past if you didn’t know which portal to find, you didn’t know what opportunities you’d missed (lost opportunities for both bidders and procurement). This is now changing with the introduction of the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS). This is a provide a common framework for publishing and sharing procurement data, including information on tender portals. OCDS defines a common data model and a set of standard fields that can be used to describe procurement processes and contracts, making it easier for different systems to share and exchange data.  By using OCDS to publish data on tender portals, different stakeholders can access and analyze the information more easily, leading to greater transparency, accountability, and efficiency in procurement processes. OCDS also allows for the integration of data from multiple sources, including different tender portals, making it easier to compare and analyze procurement data across different contexts.
Should we bid?
You’ve got your shortlist of opportunities for assessment.  Now selecting the kinds of projects or services to bid on is the next step in the bidding process.  Using historical data from your past bids is a common practice for analysing the types of bids you’re more likely to win or lose.  But as well as past decisions, it’s equally important to establish your project availability (and not just bid resourcing).  Looking at your project scheduling you should review your current data around project start dates and completion dates to ensure your company has the bandwidth to take on a new project should the bid be successful.  If you have a better picture of your project experience and current commitments, you can use this information for track records/experience, case studies and capacity to deliver to strengthen your proposal.
Estimate with greater accuracy
Once the bid has been delivered and the price has been accepted, do you follow up to compare the actual cost of similar past projects or do you pull out past bids?  This is possibly one of the biggest human errors in bidding, where the bid team refers to ”winning bids” for pricing of their next proposal.  The danger here of course is that project scope can change, and unless you monitor data once they become projects your bid team could continue to make costly mistakes. According to a study from McKinsey, 20% of construction projects are not completed on time, while 80% go over budget.  To help estimators make more accurate predictions, having access to a margin and markup calculator as well as contract data can help contractors find out their real revenue, based on their known cost and target profit margin percentage.
Which tools to use?
Contractors these days have access to many tools to collect and organise their data, and integration of these applications now makes it even more possible to streamline them into a single source of truth.  Contractors that use data can achieve a winning – and cost – advantage over their competition by gaining insights that help them bid more strategically and create stronger bids.  To take advantage of the benefits of data, contractors should invest in the right technology to collect and organize their bidding data effectively. A central bid system therefore, should collect and store pertinent, correct and accurate data about your bidding efforts, turning that data and knowledge into fuel for future success.