One of the most common everyday problems, that we all have to face, is preparing an ideal offer for our customers. The better the offer, the higher the chance of winning a sales opportunity. However, before we sit down with the team to create the aforementioned perfect offer, we have to get acquainted with the client’s expectations included in the inquiry, especially within the Terms of Reference (ToR). How to effectively deal with a remarkably stodgy ToR document and present your client with a highly tailored offer?

Interesting ToR in your CRM

Information about tender competitions can be found relatively quickly on various auction portals, which offer us the ability to monitor a database and send alerts about new inquiries. Those portals are also responsible for sending us emails with offers in which we might be interested in. We can read everyday report and by opening additional tabs it is possible to read through ToRs, as to choose those which interest us the most, save  referring information locally and proceed with preparation of our tender offer. Alternatively we can use Tendersys – our own tender assistant.

Tendersys lets us swiftly download essential data from a report from any auction broker system (e.g. Bizzone) and import it to an Excel file. Thus, instead of clicking through a lot of subpages, we are able to browse a single spreadsheet and quickly compare information. After finding the needed queries in a maze of information, you can easily import specific data into Microsoft Dynamics 365. As a result, in the CRM system we will be able to find a potential tender offered by Prime Minister’s Office (Polish: Kancelaria Prezesa Rady Ministrów, KPRM) for „technical support and maintenance service of KPRM Office Management System”.

 

 

Requirements specification for tenders must aremain in compliance with the article 36 of the Law on Public Orders, that is, contain certain elements expected from the offer. Thanks to that specification Tendersys is able to efficiently import data from an external database and map it within Dynamics 365 CRM system, so we don’t have to laboriously transfer information cell by cell.

Tender File

All information about tenders that interest us are stored in the CRM system, which lets us quickly find client’s auctions, analyze all historical offers or compare our effectiveness in offering processes across time. Card file consists of information specified in ToR, such as subject of the order, tender guarantee or place and time of handing over the offers as well as information about current stage of the tender. In result, each authorized user will be able to quickly verify what are the following steps to do in order to complete the offer and take part in this particular tender.

 

 

By gathering tender information in one system, we gain ability to analyze the tender market, which is specifically interesting for us. After finish of each offering contest, we may mark in the system, what was the result, who took part, who won and who offered what within the process. Thanks to that we keep building tender database, which may be used while preparing following offers. Having the knowledge about what kind of services of what kind of pricing are proposed by the direct competition, we will be able to create an attractive offer in terms of are and cost. Awareness of our company’s environment lets us to maximize our competitiveness.

Necessary repository of documents – MS SharePoint

During the offering process we receive, generate and attach many documents (Q&A’s, system documentation, customer’s requirements, original sheets of the ToR, evaluation, pricing form and our company’s materials). CRM system is not adjusted to storing big amounts of attachments. This is the reason for integrating tender card file with SharePoint platform.

Tendersys is based on non-standard integration with MS SharePoint. This leads to automatic creation of folder structure within our repository (main folder and subfolders) for each tender in order for each document to have its own place. It allows us to store many documents in a digested way and to quickly find separate files we currently need.

Cooperation of our CRM system with MS SharePoint has also a major role in building database of accessible company documents regularly attached to offers, e.g. curriculum vitae of project team, products or services description, letters of reference, licences, certificates.

Offer preparation – team work

The key stage of preparing our answer to ToR is establishing the evaluation. Tendersys allows us to divide evaluation process into stages depending on specific roles within the team. While pricing realization of SLA for the system, the first person responsible is consultant performing the end service. Thanks to the pricing module implemented into the tool, they are able to quickly find proper products and services in the system, matching them with specific elements mentioned in the customer’s requirements. The tool with automatically fill in the price based on data from the CRM system, however it leaves customizability potential in terms of individual work area or granted discount. The more integrated systems it is to service as well as the shorter time guaranteed within SLA, the biggest will the proposed evaluation be. System will also suggest how these services has been previously evaluated, knowledge about prior offers, especially information about the offers sent to this specific customer.

Evaluation prepared by the consultant is not final – the last word belongs to sales representative, who is responsible for tender gaining and realization. They can decide to increase offer’s competitiveness, with decreasing its profitability at the same time – they are able to offer lower hour rate for a consultant or decrease general margin. Tendersys will let them to actualize cost evalution, will remember their calculation and recount final prices based on the introduced margin.

Preparation of the offer document

After evaluation process we are able to prepare the final offer, which means joining all the generated documents as well as company’s data into one comprehensive offer file. We can do it manually, wasting a lot of time for copying and pasting separate sheets, or we may use the following Tendersys module. Thanks to intuitive text editor integrated with SharePoint platform we quickly choose those files, which we should place within our offer. Let us assume the response to this particular ToR consists of documents prepared specifically for the tender, company information and letters of reference established by satisfied customers – all accessible from the SP mail folder. Sequence of elements in the offer we are able to comfortably edit using drag&drop functionality, while each confidential document (e.g. fiscal declaration) affix with a stamp and watermark.

Based on the sequence of documents, Tendersys will prepare index for us, as well as list of attachments and will enumarate all pages of the offer. The only thing we will have to do will be generating the offer file and save it in the dedicated SharePoint folder.

Handing the offer over

Tendersys will lead us through the whole sales process as if it was a real assistant, which means, that it will help us in the offer preparation. The tool will remind us about dates of sending potential questions to the customer, next stage of the tender or date of handing the offer over. We are able to eliminate the risk of missing out offering date so weeks of our common work will not be wasted.

Due to the fact, that Dynamics 365 collects information about everything we do, we may analyze cost and time connected with servicing tenders. We may monitor effectives of our employees, kind of offers winning similar tenders and what is the probability of success in the following offer contests.

Personal tender assistant

Tendersys is a tool cooperating with Microsoft solutions. It allows us to work in an agile wat within single ecosystem – it takes advantage of the data accumulated in MS Dynamics 365, MS Excel and MS SharePoint – in the same time. Thanks to it we will download the tender data fast, analyze them and quickly prepare an offer. The system will remind us of approaching dates so we cannot forget about term of submitting questions or the final date of ordering components so we keep up with the agreed terms of realizations. Knowing detailed requirements, analyzing previous prices of our competitors and adjusting our offer to specific needs of the customer – we increase our chances in the offer contest. At the same time we minimize the time necessary to devote for a single tender and organize our work, what enables us to participate in bigger amount of proceedings. Pure profit.