What is the Cost of Sticking with the Tender Status Quo?

When it comes to the benefits of co-authoring large, complex tenders, what exactly is the cost of inaction?

In an earlier blog article – Want a Promotion? – I shared a few stories about clients who got promoted over the years. Their promotions were fueled by their deployment of co-authoring collaboration, which helped their companies save time, optimize resources and bid more. 

What would have happened if they had stuck with their status quo tender process? Most likely, they would have continued to waste time and make costly mistakes that negatively impact their win rate. (And, most likely, no one would have gotten promoted, either.)

Your Proposal Goals

You want to bid more and win more. You want to increase efficiency and productivity and leave fewer opportunities on the table. Yet, you’re worried about the impacts of onboarding co-authoring, the impact on your organization and process, and what you get for your return on investment.

In other words, the cost of investing in co-authoring must be lower than the impact of investing In co-authoring.  

When you read between the lines, however, you’ll find a significant hidden cost – the cost of doing nothing. Also known as the Cost of Inaction (COI).

The Status Quo Cost

For your business, cost of inaction equals the money you lose by continuing with the status quo. While your competition evolves their tactics and improves their operational efficiency with new technology such as co-authoring. 

Let's imagine you use a standard desktop publishing tool to develop your large, complex tenders. Every tender development project involves the same frustrating, time-consuming process. Experts spend time searching for content across systems and silos. Executives waste time pointing out missing or inaccurate content. Your proposal team wastes time reformatting every page, paragraph, sentence, and word half a dozen times before the deadline. 

No one is investing time in what will actually deliver a win; responding to the client need with clear, compelling content.

The Inaction Cost

As your process repeats itself, it delivers similar results: time spent instead of time invested. When you don’t win, no one is surprised. 

Fast forward five years. How many man-hours have you spent, and how many experts and proposal professionals have you churned through, by continuing your status quo tender process? How many opportunities have you lost because you didn’t have time to invest in standing out from your competition? 

Sure, sticking with Word is easy, and delays investment. But missed opportunities can quickly add up to millions in lost revenue – revenue you are choosing to hand to your competition by not taking action.

Benefits of Taking Action

The cost of inaction is a common topic of conversation with our clients. Many of whom experienced its impact first-hand in the past. The good news is, today, they have increased efficiency and productivity, and are doing more with the same staff through one single process change; adding co-authoring to their process. 

What results have they achieved after deploying co-authoring?

PTC (Petroleum Technology Company)

PTC is a leading developer and supplier of premium gas lift and wellhead products. In the past, they developed their large, complex tender documents using Word and Excel. 

Today, with co-authoring, they save 50% of the time their team would normally squander on those two tools. Learn more about PTC's results by reading this case study.

Honeywell UOP

Honeywell UOP is a multi-national company developing and delivering technology to major oil and gas manufacturing industries. Like PTC, Honeywell UOP used Word to develop large, complex proposals. 

Today, co-authoring has provided almost one year of savings, enabling them to submit many more proposals each year. Learn more about Honeywell UOP's results by reading this case study.

Don’t Suffer the Ultimate Cost

Is painfully inefficient tender development impacting your bottom line? Do missed opportunities have you considering a better way to collaborate? Inaction becomes unbearable when you realize exactly how it hinders your business; you’re either growing or you’re dying. 

Stop leaving money on the table. The longer you wait to improve your tender process, the more opportunities you’ll miss and the more money you’ll lose. Until then, your competitors will take advantage of your inaction and reap the rewards.

Related article: How to Increase the Focus on Content Quality?