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Take file sharing to the next level with proposal co-authoring

Author picture

Tore Medhaug

28.10.2019

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2 min

Bids and proposals are high-stakes, highly complex documents containing a wide variety of content from across the organization. Multiple contributors and stakeholders are part of the authoring process, often needing different access and permission levels.

Using traditional word processors to create these large and highly polished documents, team members find that working together can be time-consuming and frustrating.

Instead of authoring quality content, valuable time is often consumed battling formatting and other mundane aspects and variables of content management that doesn’t actually contribute to the desired output.

Often, mere hours before the deadline, authors and stakeholders are still struggling to determine which content elements and drafts are the latest versions.

In a nutshell, the entire effort is overwhelming and painfully disorganized. Standard document management tools built on Word are designed for file sharing, and are not fit for the task of co-authoring.

Read more: What is the Difference between Collaboration and Co-Authoring?

 

Pitfalls of file sharing

File sharing is a check-in and check-out system, meaning you are breaking down your document into multiple files. Different authors don’t work on the same document in real time, making it easy to lose track of the original content and hard to manage the many different versions.

What’s more, sharing business-critical data via files poses a security risk. For instance, an email attachment might wreak havoc if sent to the wrong address. A simple spelling mistake or oversight can potentially result in sensitive information falling into wrong hands, ie. competitors.

File sharing can lead to expensive mistakes, and wasted business opportunities. Thus, you need a different, more strategic and secure approach to writing your proposals.

Read more: A simple guide to complex document collaboration

 

Ensuring true collaboration

A database-driven proposal solution ensures co-authoring in the true sense of the word. If a section or subsection is updated or changed, the revisions are included across all of the documents that are in production.

Co-authoring enables you to work in real time with your team anywhere in the world while having complete visibility and control over what changes are being made. It also allows you to assign tasks to team members and create workflows.

You might also want to implement security measures to ensure only the right team members have access to certain content. This is true collaboration, which is what co-authoring is all about.

Stop using file-based solutions to create proposals, and your teams can finally avoid those caffeine-driven late-nights and the last minute panic trying to determine which is the most current and complete version.

Added business value

Co-authoring allows your team members to work concurrently on the same content at the same time. This streamlines the collective creation process, and removes inefficiencies associated with the use of traditional word processors.

Moreover, co-authoring helps your organization react more quickly to opportunities in the market and ensure that your proposals are of the highest quality and integrity.

 

improve

 

Author picture

Tore Medhaug

Tore holds a Technical degree and has a variety of business courses from BI Norwegian Business School. He has previously worked for different oil service companies and IT companies. Tore used to be Norway's biggest self-proclaimed golf talent, and also has a big passion for Ice hockey.

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