Customer story:

Ista Halves Proposal Drafting Time and Wins on Technical Quality with XaitProposal

The ista group, a leader in the energy transition of buildings, is present in 24 countries. In France, the company supports social landlords and co-ownership associations in reducing energy bills and carbon impact. To win contracts, ista responds to a large number of demanding public tenders. The company deployed XaitProposal in 2016 to ensure consistent, uniform, and professional quality in its responses across the country.

Business outcomes:

  • Proposal drafting time halved
  • Improved graphic and editorial quality 
  • Nationwide brand consistency ensured
  • Strengthened competitive edge on technical scores
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Region
France

Company size
750

Industry
IT Services and IT Consulting

Solution
XaitProposal

The Challenge: An Inefficient, Decentralized Organization

Before implementing XaitProposal, ista’s 14 agencies across France produced their technical reports independently in Word using a common template. This decentralized approach created significant limitations that hindered their ability to produce consistently high-quality proposals. The team faced several critical challenges:
  • Heterogeneity of Content: Proposals varied in content and presentation from one agency to the next, weakening brand consistency.
  • Risk of Errors: Without a central content library, there was a constant risk of using outdated or incorrect information.
  • Lack of Traceability: There was no central system for tracking or sharing content updates, making collaboration difficult.
  • Manual Inefficiency: The process was time-consuming, produced mediocre results, and was plagued by layout anomalies and copy-paste errors.

About ista

Present in 24 countries, the ista group is a leader in the energy transition of buildings.

 

In France, with 750 employees, 8,000 customers, and 3 million homes managed, the company supports social landlords and co-ownership associations in reducing energy bills and carbon impact.

“Writing in Word was time-consuming and produced mediocre results, often with layout anomalies and information that was sometimes outdated or incorrect. There was no centralized traceability or sharing of content updates... not to mention the sometimes unfortunate ‘copy and paste’ errors.”

– Marc Fatout, Deputy Sales Director in charge of Public Development, ista

The Solution: An Intuitive and Structuring Platform

When Marc Fatout joined as Deputy Sales Director, he accelerated the transition to a more efficient solution. Having successfully used XaitProposal in a previous role, he championed its adoption at ista to solve their challenges.

The primary objective was to improve the quality and impact of their technical reports by standardizing them across all agencies. This would reduce the time spent on document creation, allowing teams to focus more on customizing bids and perfecting content to meet client needs.
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“I discovered XaitProposal at a previous company and was impressed by the solution.”

– Marc Fatout, Deputy Sales Director in charge of Public Development, ista

The Result: Immediate Impact on Productivity and Quality

Since implementing XaitProposal, ista’s agency directors have a common, powerful tool that transforms their process. The platform:

  • Centralizes content via up-to-date document masters.
  • Automates page layout and formatting.
  • Ensures graphic and editorial consistency between all agencies.
  • Allows each response to be structured according to the specific plans imposed by clients.

One of the most valued features is the outline mode, which helps the team easily adapt to the demanding requirements of public tenders.

The implementation produced concrete, measurable results. The time savings were immediately reinvested into tailoring bids, leading to more strategic and competitive proposals.

“XaitProposal offers several significant advantages. Users benefit from considerable time savings... The graphic rendering of technical proposals is much more professional and standardized... Finally, centralized management of masters and their updates ensures consistency and continuous improvement.”

“XaitProposal's outline mode makes it easy to adapt your outline to the client's requirements: you can easily move elements around and change titles to use the client's wording.”

– Marc Fatout, Deputy Sales Director in charge of Public Development, ista

A Strategic Lever for Winning Contracts

For ista, technical differentiation is key to winning contracts. XaitProposal has become an indispensable tool in achieving this, enabling the company to better showcase its complex proposals and strengthen its position in public consultations. The quality of support from Xait has also been essential for meeting the tight deadlines inherent in public procurement.

“As a general rule, our technical report puts us at the top of the list, and our customers appreciate the relevance and structure of our technical proposals.”

Today, XaitProposal is more than just a tool; it’s a strategic advantage that allows ista to compete and win on the quality of its bids.

 

“We are rarely the cheapest, so our technical score is crucial to winning tenders. XaitProposal allows us to stay ahead of the game in this regard, and it would be difficult to do without it today.”

– Marc Fatout, Deputy Sales Director in charge of Public Development, ista

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