Bid or no bid decision support

Has a tender, bid or proposal opportunity come across your desk?

The potential upside of a winning bid can seem attractive – after all who doesn’t want to generate more revenue?

But does your business properly evaluate your chances, the risks and real costs before committing substantial time and resources into pursuing a bid?

Or have you been swept up in “competitive arousal”?

“Competitive arousal” is what we call the costly mistakes can be made in an adrenaline-induced state during the heat of competition. (It can be helpful – competitive arousal can motivate firms to focus and produce their best work in order to win).

But it can also be debilitating, especially over the long-term when you bid on too many “losers”. Other pitfalls include miscalculating the true ‘size of the prize’ if you do win; or worse being invited to play a stalking horse in a bid process that appears to be ‘rigged’.

Whatever the driver, sometimes decision makers can become fixated on putting in a bid at all costs, and errors, miscalculations, and rational thinking can go out the door.

JMA can help you make better bid decisions with our bid or no bid decision support service.

Independently facilitated bid or no bid decision support

JMA’s consultants will work with your team using tools such as JMA’s  bid or no questionnaire to help you rationally consider whether a current or upcoming bid opportunity is the right move for your business to invest in.

Specifically, we can help you critically and objectively:

• evaluate the strategic position of your business in relation to a particular bid, pitch, or tender opportunity
• understand your positioning vs competitors in this market segment
• analyse the strengths and weaknesses of your offering
• assess your probability of winning the work, if you proceed
• formulate initial strategies to maximise your probability of success
• work out the resources you’ll need to successfully bid.

JMA’s consultants will make clear judgment calls: we put forward strong recommendations to stop teams squandering scarce resources on longshot bids without first understanding their objective, the bid process, as well as the likelihood of success.

It’s another reason our win rate consistently runs at 80% (or higher in some areas) –  JMA can help you pick the best opportunities with the highest winnability factors and help you decide when to walk away from an ‘opportunity’.