Why you should attend

You only get one chance with a proposal. In these keenly competitive times, vendors cannot afford to come second - or worse - simply because their proposal or bid does not do them justice. This workshop shows how to produce proposals that do the business

Programme

• Introductions and Seminar Objective

• Opening Forum

  Delegates identify the key challenges they face in proposal writing and submission. Before the course commences, delegates will have been issued with a real Invitation to Tender (ITT) or Request for Proposal (RFP) which you have recently received and will have had time to read and consider it.

  We review this as a case study to be referenced throughout the workshop and to be used as a basis for syndicate work throughout the workshop, highlighting its crucial elements, opportunities and challenges.

• Back to Basics: Principles of Proposals

  What is a proposal?
  The Evolution of a Proposal:
  Vendor-Customer Co-operative Proposals; Budgetary, Formal and Informal Proposals
  Qualifying the Opportunity; Re-qualifying on Risk and Duration of Sales Cycle;
  Handling Priority Conflicts: Today’s Bread & Butter or Tomorrow’s Jam?
  The Bid Team: roles of the core team and its support. Roles of Sales and Engineering.
  One person Bid Teams. Bid Teams for PFI
  Responding to Requests for Registration of Interest
  Responding to an Invitation to Tender; Compliance - but how far?
  Analysing Competitors’ Capabilities
  Contract Duration
  Creating a Win/Win Proposal
  Full and Final Offer

• Who owns the Bid Process?

  The Bid Team: the core team and support roles.
  One person Bid Teams.
  Bid Teams for PFI
  How Proposals are Evaluate

• Practical #1

  How are these principles to be applied to the Case Study Invitation to Tender? Syndicates explore the possibilities, consider and present their views for discussion.

• The Proposal Document

  How to Make Product Negatives Positive
  Proposal Structure, Content and Format:
  Covering Letter, Executive Summary, Body and Appendices -balance; who should write what?
  Proposal Standards; Use of Templates; Style, Language and Presentation; Corporate Identity; Differentiation; Electronic Proposals. Translation Issues - Scope for Discrepancies?
  Content: The 5 Vital Messages; The Importance of AIDA
  Establishing credibility; Demonstrating Value-added on Bought-in Content
  Writing Proposals with Punch
  Offering Better Terms - At Marginal Cost
  Pricing Structures and Value Added Extras
  Alternative Offers and Creative Solutions - or Customer Confusion?
  The "Numbers": Product Differentiation; Cost of Ownership and Cost / Benefit Issues
  Proposal Pitfalls - How to Avoid Them
  Reviewing Team and One-Person Proposals

• Practical #2

  Delegates formulate their response the Case Study Invitation to Tender, and begin to put into practice the principles discussed during the day.

• Pause for Breath: What do you Need to Know?

  No Invitation to Tender is complete; many are ambiguous and some are downright misleading. Syndicates raise -and discuss - the problems discovered with this particular ITT. How can the gaps be filled?

• Managing Exposure: Conditions, Specifications and Service Level Agreements

  Quality standards: BS 5750 & ISO 9000
  How to specify the requirement
  Service Levels and Support Issues
  What Makes Good and Bad Service Level Metrics
  Quality in Dynamic Environments
  Performance and throughput criteria: Quality V Utilisation Variability
  PFI Challenges - Risk Sharing
  The 3 Types of PFI Projects
  Financially free-standing projects;
  Services sold to the public sector
  Joint Ventures
  - Pros and Cons
  Issues of Technological Obsolescence and Residual Values
  PFI:
  

  DBFO (Design, Build, Finance & Operate),
  DCMF (Design, Construct, Manage and Finance) ,
  BOO (Build, Own, Operate) and
  BOOT (Build, Own, Operate and Transfer) schemes
  

  Whose Terms & Conditions? Striking the Balance - Protection or Negativity?
  Challenging Customer Terms & Conditions
  Managing Risk
  Working in Consortia as Prime or Subcontractor; Approaches and Controls

• Practical #3

  Syndicates finalise the key points of their proposal.

  Practical #4: Proposal Presentation

  Face-to-face presentation of a proposal provides another opportunity to close the sale. Syndicates present their proposals to "Customer" syndicates for discussion and review.

• Review and Forum

• Can we Win?

  Getting into the Customer’s mind set, Evaluation Criteria, based on the Case Study, are developed and considered and syndicates consider whether their proposal would have succeeded in getting on the short list.

  A model Proposal for the Case Study is considered - syndicates compare their Proposals with the model and develop a checklist for internal use.

• The Decision Cycle

  The battle is not over until the contract is placed. There is a window of opportunity while bids are being assessed. What can - and must - suppliers do to keep their Proposal live. What must they not do? What concerns will the prospect have - and how do we allay them? The role of specialist purchasing staff and the role of the technical expert. Influencing the Decision Making Unit during the Decision Cycle.

• Review and Closing Forum

Books by Kingswell Consultants

Books on Service Management

Hiles, A. N. The Complete Guide to IT Service Level Agreements, Matching Service Quality to Business Needs.. ISBN 0-9641648-2-5 published by Rothstein Associates Inc.  The standard work on IT Service Level Agreements.

Hiles, A. N. E-Business Service Level Agreements: Strategies for ISPs, ASPs, *SPs and CLECS.  Published by Rothstein Associates Inc.  The first book to deal specifically with e-commerce Service Level Agreements.

Hiles, A. N. Service Level Agreements, Winning a Competitive Edge for Supply and Support Services.  ISBN 0-9641648-4-1published by Rothstein Associates Inc. This book applies Service Level Agreements to services other than IT. Real case studies and example SLAs are provided ranging from Human Resources, Logistics, through Training, Livestock Handling, Logistics and Field Service Engineering.

Hiles A.N. and Gunn, Dr. Y. Creating a Customer-Focused Help Desk: How to Win and Keep Your Customers. Published by Rothstein Associates Inc. ISBN 0-9641648-6-8 This book has the support of the Help Desk Institute www.helpdeskinst.com

Books on Business Continuity

Hiles A.N. Business Continuity Management: Best Practice. Published by Rothstein Associates Inc. ISBN 0-9641648-3-3.  This book explicitly covers all the ten areas of business continuity competence required for membership of the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) and the Business Continuity Institute (BCI).

Hiles A.N. Enterprise Risk Assessment & Business Impact Analysis – Best Practices ISBN 1-931332-12-6 Published by Rothstein Associates Inc. Covers many techniques and methods of risk and impact assessment with detailed examples and checklists.

e-Publication. Kingswell books on Business Continuity, Service Level Agreements and  Help Desk Management will shortly be available by page download in conjunction with Rothstein Associates Inc and Books24x7.com.

New and updated books. Existing  books Business Continuity Management – Best Practice and IT Service Level Agreements have been extensively updated. See our products page or visit www.rothstein.com .

All the above books can be obtained from:

Rothstein Associates Inc.
4 Arapaho Road
Brookfield
Connecticut
0608-3104 USA

www.rothstein.com

e-mail pjr@rothstein.com

Telephone: USA: 1-888-ROTHSTEIN
Worldwide: +1 203 740 7400

Hiles A.N. Guide to Risk Management. Published by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.

Hiles A.N. and Barnes, P. (Editor and main contributor) The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity Management, John Wiley & Sons, 1999, ISBN 0 471 98622 4.

Hiles, A.N. (contributor), Croner’s Purchasing and Supply Guide to I.T., 1994, ISBN 1 85524 271 0

Hiles, A.N. (contributor), Guide to Business Continuity Management, 1999, for the Confederation of British Industry by Caspian Publishing

Hiles A.N. (contributor) Business Continuity Management, 2000, Institute of Directors / Department of Trade & Industry.