Improving the win rate
When in 2014 MarketingWorks, in association with Professor
Will Hughes of the University of Reading, updated their 2003 research assessing
how the bid cost investment affects work winning within the construction
industry, we found that differing
behaviours and approaches influenced whether a company wins or loses the bid.
So, as different behaviours may result in different outcomes for different
kinds of project, it is vital to create and manage the bid process to capture
good feedback, learn from past mistakes and apply the knowledge gained to
maximise success in future bids.
In the survey, we asked ‘What reasons were given as to why
you won or lost the bid?’ As this was an open question, we took the reasons
given and grouped them under broader headings (Graph 1) and where a combination
of factors was given, we then analysed them further in Graph 2 (below).
The survey found that for 11% of bids won and 15% of bids
lost, the reasons for winning or losing are apparently unknown (See Graph 1
above). It is our experience that, without a clear, fact-based understanding of
why bids succeed or fail, companies cannot make improvements for the future.
Losing bidders may repeat mistakes and may be bidding for projects they could
never win. Winning bidders may not be proactively applying the factors that
have in the past led to success.
Long-standing
government guidance advises governmental bodies to provide feedback to both
winning and losing bidders as a matter of good practice. Anecdotal examples
from the industry suggest that in some cases clients do not provide clear and
accurate feedback whilst in others the bidders fail to ask. This leads to the
conclusion that the industry as a whole (both sides of the work-winning
process) are not valuing the role that feedback plays in improving the
efficiency of work-winning approaches and behaviours.
Half of reasons given for
losing the bids in this survey were price related (Graph 1). In practise, the suggestion is that price is
often a default position: if all bidders are aiming to win on price or are
differentiating in similar ways, then clients will revert to price as the most
clearly defined way of choosing the winning bid. This result could also imply
that these bids were lost because the bidders’ focus was purely on price.
Whilst there were other single, overriding reasons given for
losing, it was extremely interesting that 21% of responses identified a
combination of factors. The picture is quite different when reviewing the
reasons given for winning. Here, whereas
single, overriding factors were also mentioned, with almost a third of
responses being price related, in almost 40% of responses, a combination of
factors were given as the reason for
winning.
We have broken down the responses mentioned within the
category ‘combination of factors’ in Graph 2, to see the frequency with which
different factors are mentioned. When we drill down into the combination of
factors we can see that whilst price was mentioned in 25% of cases for winning
bids and 27% for losing bids, many other reasons were also given.
The important thing to take away is that contractors and consultants shouldn’t
try to win on one single thing, but that a better winning strategy would be to
focus on a combination of winning factors, which requires an empowered and
enthused team focused on understanding their clients’ needs and objectives and developing the right combination of key
themes that will be successful for that client and project. This will not only
significantly improve win rates, but reduce the number of abortive bids and
their associated costs.
MarketingWorks offers a range of solutions to help our
clients achieve these objectives including creating bespoke win work flow
processes and guidance that supports company-wide adoption of a work winning
culture with embedded client centric behaviours and attitudes that improve win
rates and work winning efficiencies.
MarketingWorks
works with you to identify desirable changes in behaviours and processes and
then works with your teams to uplift their capability, achieving rapid buy-in
to desired behavioural change resulting in dramatic and immediate improvement.
Read More
By using MarketingWorks’ Selectivity and Reporting Tools you
will be able to avoid waste by refocusing resources and effort on enhancing the
quality of those bids where they have the highest chance of winning. Read More
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