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Winning_Proposals_10_Guidelines
| Winning Proposals: 10 Guidelines
The concept of proposals has accomanied business-activities
throughout the past few centuries. In recent years this concept
has become a more integral part of how we conduct business. If
you are in any industry you should be completely aware of the
entire affair; if not then you are doing something wrong or you
are out of business. Having spent a few years as a consultant
has taught me much about the entire proposal process, and about
evaluating them as well. If you have seen what I have seen you
would be amazed to learn that the majority of proposals
evaluated were of an exceptional poor quality.
One would expect a company to go that extra mile when preparing
a proposal for a project amounting to a couple of million
dollars; yet I found that some companies cannot even follow the
most basic instructions in a Request for Proposal (RFP)
document. Of all the proposals that has passed over my desk in
recent years, Information Systems and other related Information
Technology proposals provided the majority. Among them,
approximately 10% of these proposals qualified as "good
proposals". This top percentile of material evaluated were to
the last one prepared by and submitted by one of the top 10 IT
companies or their affiliates / strategic alliances. Why were
these proposals good? These companies has learned, or in most
cases had a consultant tell them what qualifies as a good
proposal; what to include and what to exclude; and generally how
to write one.
In order to write a good proposal you must adhere to the rules.
Remember that presentation of your offer is nine tenths of the
battle. You may have a good product, but it does not really mean
anything unless you can present it in such a way as to convince
the reader that: Your product is the best product from
the 20 or so evaluated; and Your company would be the
preferred company to work with because you are conversent in the
subject area and your professionalism goes beyond the norm.
In the past companies and their representatives were
quite disappointed because they were not selected - the
representatives sulked and made themselves guilty of underhanded
activities to get their products selected (to no avail) or
re-evaluated. Any good evaluater will nod politely and then tell
them 'No' - they have had their chance in the evaluation process
where they were evaluated on an equal basis against all other
candidates. When told that their proposals are beyond the point
of sub-standard and their products are poorly represented, there
were always arguments. However, if these companies exhibited
basic professionalism when preparing their proposals, a lot of
tears could have been avoided.
Writing a winning proposal
In order to prepare a professional and above all a winning
proposal, you must adhere to the following guidelines:
Follow the instructions in the RFP to the letter. Prepare
your proposal according to the guidelines provided. Do not get
creative - Evaluators has to go through a lot of work during the
longlist evaluation and will not spend extra time trying to
puzzle out how you organised your proposal.
Present Your Company, Present Your Product - Define why you
should be chosen. Be clear on who and what you are. Be
specific on what you can do. Be specific on the features of your
product. Ensure that your product covers all points of the RFP.
Be specific. Do not embellish. Always represent the
capabilities of your company and your product without
embellishment. In other words do not BS. If your product or
company cannot meet a stipulation of the RFP, look to forming
strategic alliances with companies that can provide in the
requirement.
Strategic Alliances: One point of contact. Customers do
not want to have hassles when implementing, or maintaining a
system after implementation. If at all possible define a
proposal leader amonst your alliance and define this company as
the single point of contact for any upfollowing activities.
Structure and Order. Stick to the point. Provide a good
referencing structure in your proposal. Remember, a proposal is
not a Lone Wolf gamebook (the kind where you have to page around
to read the story). Put all relevant information pertaining to
the RFP in the main body of the document. Any ancilliary
material goes in an appendix with adequate referencing from the
body.
Cater to your audience: Proper Mix of Tech and Sales.
Keep your proposal readable and believable. This can only be
achieved by putting a leash on your sales people and by teaching
your techies how to write copy that is readable by the human
species.
Inspire Confidence. It is always a good idea to include a
corporate resume. Only list past projects that are relevant to
the issue at hand - do not include irrelevant work to fill out
your proposal.
Spell out how you work. Define the project structure and
scope adequately. Identify your personnel and technical
competencies berforehand. Create a believable project plan.
Methodology is key. Customers and evaluators want to be
reassured that you know what you are doing and that you will
attempt the assignment in a structured and ordered manner. If
you do not have a methodology by which you work, establish one
or acquire it. Ensure that your personnel are trained and are
conversant in this methodology. Remember, a project plan on its
own is not a methodology.
Run the proposal process as a project. Time is money and
money is time. Resource assignment on a proposal should be
justifiable. Do not spend too much time and effort on little
jobs, and too little time and effort on big jobs.
About the author:
Riaan Pieterse is the CEO and founder of Kerberos Internet
Services CC, South Africa. Having spent a number of years
conducting various consulting assignments in the Far East,
Middle East, Africa and Europe to businesses and governments
alike, Riaan has a solid understanding of the business and
technology issues in today's market.
For more information visit http://www.kerberosdev.net
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