9 ways to ‘stack the deck’ to win that vital tender

9 ways to ‘stack the deck’ to win that vital tender

 

The better prepared the tender, the better the chance of winning.

Hard to disagree with that statement, but then what makes for a better prepared tender?

While price has a role to play, it is only the deciding factor when all else is equal. Your task as a tenderer is to ensure that all else is not equal, and that your tender represents the best value to the enterprise wanting something  done. Then  you have stacked the deck!

A friend of mine is a senior engineer in a very large building contractor, one of those who is changing the skyline of Sydney on an almost daily basis.

The stress is killing him.

There is the constant need to keep the work flow of projects moving, identifying, preparing and winning tenders, then there is the stress that really kicks in as the construction side of the business tries to extract profit out of a ‘successful’ tender.

Talking to him I was reminded of Albert Einstein’s quote that ‘If I had an hour to fix a life defining problem, I would spend the first fifty minutes defining the problem, the rest is just maths’

When preparing a tender, the filling of the form is the maths. You have to get it right, all questions answered with quality copywriting, no spelling or punctuation errors, professional layout, but still just maths.

The key to winning is not in the maths, that is just table stakes, it is in the manner in which the vision of the contractor is reflected in the documents, the manner in which the tender you submit reflects value in the eyes of the judges. Each judge in the process will have a different definition of ‘Value’. The accountants will focus on cost, the engineers on the durability, regulatory and engineering integrity, the architects in the manner in which the construction reflects the aesthetic and functional innovations contained in their design, and the stakeholders in the return on investment, which is a function of both price to build and price that the construction can generate from buyers and users.

When you spend an extra $1 on the build that generates an extra $2 on the market value, the extra investment is a great one.

So what makes for a winning tender, that is also commercially successful as the job is completed?

Seems to me that the best measure is the degree to which the tenderer comes back and offers some sort of inside running for the next big project because of your performance in the last one or two

Tendering against someone who has that sort of inside running is usually a waste of time and money.

In the case of public infrastructure tenders, where price is a more important factor, you also have to manage the added complication of the nature of the bureaucratic processes and the politics of  the day.

Just ask Acciona, the Spanish firm who contracted to build the Sydney light rail project, which has become another infrastructure debacle. They seem to have taken the arguably inadequate tender docs literally, failed to do their own due diligence, quoted a price and time line, then found themselves in a billion dollar slanging match with the government.

When was the last time you saw a really complicated project RFQ that reflected all the complications that evolved during the construction?

So, how to stack the deck in your favour?

Perhaps a better way of putting it is to answer the question: ‘How can I quote the highest reasonable price, and still win the tender?

Know more about the project than the principal.

Understand what is really being requested. Most tender documents are dry tick the box type things that have nothing of the ‘humanity’ to which most projects are setting out to make a contribution. Focus on the humanity, and vision, not just the yes/no questions.

Understand the ‘vision’ of the principal.

Better yet, shape the vision, so that you can shape the guidelines of the tender docs to best suit your distinctive capabilities

Have relationships with all the ‘functional Buyers’ in the process.

It is always the case that there are a variety of roles played inside a tender process. Engineering, regulatory affairs, financial, architectural, and project management all will have a differing perspective of the end result, and the best route to get there. There is also always someone with the final call, a right of veto. Understanding the nuances of these functional variations, and accommodating them in the manner in which you approach both the documentation and the informal conversations that occur is vital.

Anticipate and leverage ‘Buyers’ personal inclinations.

The ‘buyers’ in the process, in addition to the functional bias, will have personal and emotional views about the best tender. Some will be for you, some against you, some ambivalent, and sometimes there is one prepared to ‘coach’ you on the side when you are a their preferred candidate. Being sensitive to these views, and leveraging them is often of critical importance.

Identify information holes.

No RFQ is ever complete, so identifying the ‘information holes’ not only gives you added credibility, it also gives you the opportunity to get a jump on competitors

Articulate any obvious shortcomings you may have.

Rarely would a tenderer be an absolutely perfect fit for a job, there will always be compromises that can be used as objections by those who may have an alternative favoured candidate. The best way to deal with objections is to raise them yourself, and deal with them. Once dismissed in this way, they generally cease to be valid objections.

Be proud of price.

Remember the old cliché ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’? It still applies. Human beings are always concerned with their own best interests, which correlates strongly to making as few mistakes as possible. Most are wary of the cheapest price, there is always a catch, either in the fine print, exclusions, or poorer quality, so there is always room to justify a reasonable price that delivers value but not at the rock bottom.

Tenders are competitions.

As in any competitive situation, the more you know about your competition, the better able you are to address their strengths and capitalise on their relative weaknesses. A tender process is not all about you, and your response, it is also about your response relative to the others in the race.

Attention to detail.

It is so obvious that it should not be in this list, but nevertheless, is often overlooked. Spelling and grammatical mistakes abound, as do simple editing errors, inadequately or unanswered questions, and an absence of simple but elegant and memorable graphic design. Make sure you do not repeat these mistakes of your competitors.

 

When you lose, as is inevitable from time to time, make sure you invest the time and effort in understanding why you lost, learn the lessons so the next time you are a step ahead.

Photo: industry.nsw.gov.au

 

 

Is your mentor asking you these 8 key questions?

Is your mentor asking you these 8 key questions?

Successful people can always point to one, or a few people who over the years have contributed to their success. A great mentor does not tell you what to do, or how to do it, rather they examine motivations, objectives and options to help you determine which path you will follow, then provide feedback and suggested options for consideration.

The tool of an effective mentor is searching, challenging, and enlightening questions.

What does success look like?

This is a question that adapts itself from the little tactical things, to the big strategic challenges that need to be defined and faced. Creating a conversation where the goals are articulated by the mentee  creates ownership in their minds. ‘Owning’ a challenging  goal is the first essential step in achieving it.

What do you want to be different in 3 years?

This question is a follow up and supporting question to  the first one, and it gives a time frame, a powerful motivator to action, as it requires commitment. Together these two questions add up to what I call ‘hindsight planning‘.

What are the major obstacles being faced.

The obstacles we face are a mix of personal, and commercial, identifying the shape of them is the first step to developing strategies to overcome them. Like any problem, and obstacle undefined is never addressed in an optimum manner.

How do we measure progress?

Having defined what success looks like, and identified the major roadblocks, you have to at some point act, and measure progress towards the goal. Fine words without the actions to achieve them are just hot air.

What can you control, and what is outside your control?

Focused effort on leveraging the variables under your control that deliver the outcomes you want,  is essential. However, ignoring the things you cannot control, is a huge mistake. The best you can do is see, and have a deep understanding of how these uncontrollable factors may impact on the performance of your businesses and achievement of key objectives. Then you should  plan to enable the leveraging of potential opportunities that may emerge, while mitigating the potential negatives.

What are the options available?.

Encouraging wide and analytical thinking is necessary in the face of complex problems. This is a question to be asked every day, in relation to every action. Dealing with any uncertainty is always helped by understanding the options available, and only committing when they have been analysed, and then only when you need to progress. The danger of course is that there is an over-consideration, which becomes procrastination.

What would you do next time?

Explicitly learning from experience separates the successful from the rest.  Conducting a formal ‘After Action review’, a term that evolved from  the US army learning processes is common in large businesses after a capital expenditure project is completed. Critical review of actual outcomes compared to the plan is far less common in non-financial areas than it should be. The discipline is a crucial one, from the major strategic decisions to the tactical and team based projects on a shop floor. Those familiar with process improvement often use the term  ‘Plan Do Check Act’ which is a core discipline of process improvement.

Tell me more.

This is always a question to apply in any situation where you are trying to uncover the motivations, cause and effect, and implications inherent in any situation. The simple act of asking the question  ensures that the one being questioned has another look at their preconceptions, and barriers.

When you think you might benefit from this kind of collaborative performance management, give me a call. After 40 years of doing it, I have learned a bit that may be of value yo you.

5 planning principals for the major long term sale.

5 principals

Planning to engage a major potential customer is much more than finding the phone number on the web site and ringing reception to ask who is the right person to speak to.

Chances are, even if they know who the right person is they will connect you to the intern.

For years I have been teaching and running workshops with the eye-raising acronym of SKAM.

Strategic Key Account Management.

The underlying logic is that there are only 3 ways to engage with a customer that leads to a transaction that is of a significant size:

You can help them increase their sales

You can help them increase their productivity

You can help them reduce their costs

 

On another level, there are some questions that you can ask yourself, and in the answering, arrive at a number of possible approaches, as it is rare that the first you try will work, but learning from the experience will help you with the second.

  1. How to I add value to what they are doing
    • How do I demonstrate knowledge that I can make available to them that they will benefit from
    • What trends or technologies can I bring to their attention that at will impact on their future profitability
    • What insights can I bring to them
    • What specific knowledge can I share

2. How do I go about building trust.

    • What about their internal culture can I tap into and make a contribution
    • What do the need or want that I have, and can give them

3. What can I do to be pro active and demonstrate my ability to work with them and help them achieve their goals

    • What insights can I bring to them that will be of benefit?

4. How am I accountable for optimum results.

    • Sales do not stop with the payment cheque. After sales service, warranties, ongoing advice, and so on all demonstrate that you are accountable for the promises made before the cheque was cashed.

5. How am I going to continue the engagement after the first transaction

    • Once a customer has bought from you, if you do the right thing, you will have them as a customer again, and again. It is very useful to measure your “share of wallet
    • Would they recommend your services to their networks? Asking for referrals is a powerful marketing tool when you have satisfied customers, as there is no more powerful toll that word of mouth advertising.

Success in B2B sales of significant products, not just paperclips, takes patience and planning. It almost never evolves the way you expect, and almost never as quickly as you would like,  hang in there.

The 4 secrets of small business marketing

Worlds greatest marketer

Albert Einstein would have made a great marketer.

He made a number of statements that are highly applicable, but one that sticks in mind is:

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, no simpler”

Marketing is simple in concept, but becoming ever more complication in the execution.

The huge array of choices to be made at every stage is enough to scare many people away, so their marketing remains sub optimal.

There are only four components, all are critical, and all interact with each other creating the huge mass of choice confronting us, but in its simplest form, it really is pretty easy to understand.

  1. The message. What is said
  2. The medium. Where it appears
  3. The mechanism. How it gets there
  4. The sweet spot in the middle. The customer.

Albert also said “if I had an hour to solve a life and death problem, I would spend the first 50 minutes defining the problem. The rest is just maths”.

Marketing is just the same, define the outcome you are seeking, the problem you are solving, and the game is over, you can go to lunch in peace.

See, now you know.

Simple to say, hard to do.

 

Suppliers to Supermarkets have  two customer types.

Big dogs hold the cards

Big dogs hold the cards

This post is the 5th in the series, how to beat the supermarket gorillas at their game. Like David taking on Goliath, small businesses supplying into FMCG (Fast moving Consumer Goods) markets simply have to find the points where they can exert some leverage, where their relative agility can deliver them an advantage against the disadvantage of size.

It is important for them to remember at all times that they have two customers types, and they are different.

Entirely different.

One wants to make money from you, and is almost entirely devoid of any personal investment in any of your marketing activities, profile, or brand. The other needs you to solve problems for  them, or just fill an everyday need , and is highly likely to respond to any one or more likely a mix of your marketing activity, including those the supermarkets favour, i.e. Price reductions, shelf highlights and paid off location displays.

Supermarket are interested in the role you can play in making their brand the one chosen by consumers, weather or not the consumer then chooses to buy your brand of widget while you shop is almost entirely irrelevant to them, what  is relevant is how much in total consumers buy, how often they buy, and how they feature in the consumers mix of retail preferences. Do they just do the fortnightly big family shop with them, do they drop  in regularly to top up, or even just to buy a few necessities? From the retailer issued loyalty cards, if you have one, supermarkets know just about everything about the behavior of each consumer, and increasingly as social media and location data is integrated, they will have the opportunity to know just about everything about the consumers total buying behavior, inside and outside of their stores.

The planning of your marketing and sales promotion activity must take these realities into account, so following are two lists of the key considerations for small businesses as they contemplate climbing into, or just surviving the Gorilla ring.

Supermarkets.

  • Maximum margin. As with any retailer, supermarkets want to buy as cheaply as possible, and sell as high as possible, and they have perfected techniques to extract added margin from suppliers via a range of promotional, payment and ranging/space allocation charges. At the same time, they pro-actively manage price, adjusting to local and regional competition and trading conditions to maximise their take at the check-out. Suppliers are often seduced by the scale of supermarkets and the potential sales on offer. Without rigorous go/no-go points, a focus on the sales and margin outcomes they want, and clear and aggressively enforced set of trading terms, they usually find themselves losing any negotiation.
  • Two businesses. Supermarkets are in two businesses. The first is renting retail real estate to suppliers, the second is selling product to consumers. These are different games, and supermarkets are very good at both. Category management discipline dictates the manner in which retailers range, locate, and promote products, but do enable small businesses that know the “rules” to find ways to be creative and pro-active and to use  category opportunities   to their benefit. It is however, not easy, or for the faint-hearted, to be successful suppliers need to be absolutely on top of their strategies, and understand intimately their own target customers, and the ROI of promotional activity.
  • Low shelf  price. Supermarkets around the world use price as a consumer “bait”. The Australian gorillas have both made low prices a central plank in their strategies to attract consumers.  Everyday low prices, deep price specials, off location displays and promotional prices are all funded by suppliers, at least to a significant degree. Coupled with the maximum margin strategy, this is a poisonous mix for suppliers without aggressive account management, and a deep understanding of their costs and consumers. The trade-off is in the scale of sales that can be delivered by supermarkets.
  • Exclusive range. Retailers love something that consumers want, but can only get in their stores. Some products will always be available in both, but increasingly, small suppliers will have to make choices about which retailer they favour, but in turn, this can be used to suppliers advantage, as it shores up distribution in at least one of the gorillas. Problem is that the reach of the gorillas is so big that such a choice eliminates you from up to 40% of the potential sales.
  • Better than competitive terms and promotional arrangements. All retailers work to a set of trading terms, and as noted, have perfected the management of them to extract the maximum from suppliers. However, there is always pressure to give a  bit more than is given to the other retailers, usually “disguised” in all sorts of ways, an extra promotion beyond terms, a guarantee of a longer buying period, longer payment terms, and all sorts of other creative ways to get a competitive margin advantage.   The next time you are tempted, just think about the repercussions if that buyer now pressing for an advantage turns up as a buyer for the other one next month. It does happen, as many can attest.
  • Stock or inventory turn.  This is a common and base measure for all retailers. How often can they turn the stock over?. The quicker the better, obviously. If your stock is turning 10 units a week, and there is a product the retailer can put in the same shelf space that will turn 12 units a week at the same margins, guess which one gets the space! Obviously it is more complicated than this, as there are % and absolute margins and consumer choice to be considered, but stock turn is an absolutely  key measure.  Of course, if they can turn case a week over, but do not pay for it for 45 days, the supplier is effectively funding the gorillas working capital.
  • Minimum inventory levels. Coupled with the point above, retailers aim for the minimum inventory levels consistent with ensuring that stock is available on shelf at all times. This requires some pretty fancy and data intensive footwork by both retailers and suppliers, but the pressure is on suppliers for more but smaller deliveries to central warehouse for redistribution. This often  has the effect of increasing the logistics costs for the suppliers, who instead of delivering a semi load every second day, are required to deliver a half semi every day.
  • Assistance with the “last 20 feet”.  The most expensive and prone to error is the distance between the back dock of an individual supermarket, and the shelf. Supermarkets generally welcome the assistance of supplier employed labor to assist with that last 20 feet, but there are rules that must be followed. However, for a supplier there is considerable benefit in being able to ensure there is stock on hand, and that the planogram allocated shelf space is in fact taken by your products, while often being able to take advantage of opportunities as they arise at store level.

Consumers.

  • Favoured brand and size. Consumers loyalty to brands varies widely, but generally is significantly reduced from 20 years ago. However, most consumers have a number of products that are acceptable to them as substitutes for each other, but with a favorite if all other things are equal. Anticipating consumers and reflecting their views and needs is the biggest variable left in the hands of suppliers, and success comes with the capability to use data to model and optimise the behavior triggers that exist.
  • Lowest price. Price dominates the FMCG markets, but is still not the only factor. Consumers each have an individual perspective on what constitutes value to them, in any given set of circumstances, and shop accordingly. For most, price is the dominating factor, but there are many others. The opportunity for smaller businesses is to find the niche where price is less dominant, and build their business in that niche. Very easy to say, but very hard to do, but there are some out there delivering great results by focusing on things other than price, and ensuring they deliver consumers value.
  • Convenience. Consumers are time poor, and shopping for households is usually a chore. Making it easy by adequate parking, easy access, wide isles, all in one place, logical shelf and store layouts, and many others makes a big difference in the choices consumers make about where they will shop.
  • Courtesy and assistance. So rare these days, but genuinely connecting on a human level  makes a huge difference to consumers.  On the other hand, consumers  are increasingly cynical and dismissive of the  rote “have a nice day” and plastic smile.
  • Confidence in the products on shelf. Consumers are prepared to make changes in their choice of retailer on the basis of their confidence, particularly in the fresh categories, fruit and vegetables, meat, and dairy. With the exception  of dairy, there are almost no proprietary brands in these categories, so consumers are relying on the retailer to take the place of the proprietary brand and provide reassurance of the integrity of the product. The recent very public recall of the “Creative Gourmet”  and “Nanna’s” brands of frozen berries have heightened the concerns with produce, and the supply chains that deliver them. Unfortunately, the owner of these brands, Patties Foods  is one of the last significant Australian owned businesses in the FMCG supply chain. Although they have reacted well to date to the problems, which should not have been happened with reasonable diligence of their supply chain, they stand condemned for the QA failure that allowed the failure in the first place. The recall and current  focused concern with country of origin labelling in produce categories  certainly offers an opportunity for Australian sourced produce to  gain some leverage back, should they be able to take up the challenge.

Many of these factors will require trade-offs, some short term, others longer term. For example, for added distribution, most suppliers will consider fattening retailer margins while retaining low on-shelf prices in the hope that sales volumes will recover the difference, but often low price is counter to the long term health of the brand. Diversion of resources from branded marketing to retailer margins in return for distribution is the often the hardest choice that needs to be made. Over the last 20 years  the supermarkets have won the debate and sucked the resources suppliers have away from brand marketing activity to their margins, to the detriment of the long term health of proprietary brands.

In Australia with the two gorillas holding 75-80% of sales, depending on the category, it has been a branding disaster, now consumers are increasingly confronted by an array of brands they do not know, often housebrands produced under contract for retailers, often by the owners of their  former favorite brand, now no longer available.

The minefields outlined above require experienced and dispassionate navigation, get in touch for a dose of both.

 

 

Has your business leapt these 7 digital hurdles to success?

Lyn & Steve Aspey

Lyn & Steve Aspey

As a participant at the Techfest in Armidale this week, a regional effort to bolster the IT profile of the New England area, I was thinking about the characteristics of businesses I have seen over the last 20 years that have successfully  navigated the changes to their competitive and strategic markets wrought by the explosion of digital capability.

All exhibit some or all of these 7 characteristics.

It also seems that these traits of those who successfully  made transition, are made more obvious by those who had not survived, who had failed to navigate these hurdles.

It also seemed not to matter one bit if they were multinationals or the corner store.

  1. Pressure on prices and margins. The most obvious impact of digital is the relentlessly increasing pressure on prices and margins. Customer and consumers can check competitive offerings with a few swipes on a phone, and do  research on the relative value to them, of competitive offerings with consummate ease. Inevitably, prices are pushed down, and margins are squeezed in all cases where a business has failed to clearly differentiate itself from its competitors.
  2. Power has moved from the seller to the buyer. I have written about this phenomenon in several places, as it is a profound change in the way markets work. The buyer now has all the opportunities they want or need to make judgements about competitive offers before the seller even knows they are in a race for a sale.
  3. New competition emerges from unanticipated sources. Who would have expected a computer company to disrupt the music industry, or the business travel sector being eroded  by video conferencing. Emerging competitors also often have the effect of cherry picking, taking away the most profitable customer segments from incumbents, destabilising their position. Telecom is the primary example here, as private providers concentrate on dense urban areas, ignoring the “social compact” that existed previously of equal access. The incumbents are having a tough time.
  4. Business models have evolved very quickly.  Not only are there new businesses models, but they evolve almost on the run, with new businesses iterating to new models as they “pivot”  and find their way to markets that value what they can deliver.
  5. The war for talent. There are lots around who can do the simple stuff, and mouth the jargon, but a shortage of those who “think digital” but are able to translate that thinking into the sorts of innovations and processes that change customer and market behaviour. There is a substantial  competitive advantage that can accrue to those who have in their teams just a few of these rare people, and the competition of their services is substantial. Never was the cliché “our people are our greatest asset” truer, nor harder to maintain than now.
  6. Supply chains are now global, and transparent. Digital technology is national  border agnostic, resulting in the globalisation of supply chains. This simple factor has changed the manufacturing face of the first wold, and in this country led to the decimation of Australian manufacturing, something for which over time we will pay a very high price.
  7. Scale of operations has changed dramatically. It used to be that to build operational scale, you also needed a scaled management infrastructure to service that scale, but no longer. Scale can now be digitised, outsourced, and the capabilities of just a few people leveraged. At the same time the global nature of supply chains has strengthened large organisations able to make  the global leap, but paradoxically, has opened opportunities for local businesses not there before.

It also seems to me, and I have no evidence beyond the anecdotal and that of my own eyes, that we have become a society where the value of personal relationships has been diminished, at the same time in theory they have been made easier to maintain. It seems that we have substituted numbers or breadth  of relationships for the depth we used to have confirming again the theories of Robin Dunbar.

As I said, I am a participant at Techfest. This participation is via my 20 year old consulting business StrategyAudit, plus a new business in the throes of being launched, Intellicast, which is a partnership with Lyn Aspey of Imagehaven, and Steve Aspey of Aspey.com.au.  In addition Lyn and Steve between them are prime movers in NETAG, the New England Technology Advisory Group, a small voluntary group of the aforementioned rare individuals who are prepared to offer their advice and experience to those in the area struggling with the digital revolution.

I hope the effort of a few deliver benefit to the region, and to the businesses in the region.