The gap between what a potential customer wants and what they can afford...

We recently had the opportunity to bid for a mix of requirements through the traditional bid process, which is not something we get to do a lot ourselves, as tendering for help with bids is rare.

The potential customer was a Midlands motoring related business who lead with price when marketing themselves.  They wanted proposal training AND a 'fit for purpose bid process certified as world class'.

One of my colleagues had met with them once, hence our involvement, but he was mystified by the latter requirement, as the expectation was not set by him, so I rang them to find out more (i.e. doing some qualification) before we invested in a proposal.

To the best of my knowledge there is no certification process or standard for a bid process, other than ISO etc, so I asked how important this was, as well as asking them what their budget was as such a process would probably cost at least 6 figures if not 7.

After a short silence I was requested to drop the reference to 'certified as world class' from the RFP, and informed that 5 figures would be too expensive.

After a great deal of thought we produced a very brief proposal that met their requirements, but at a price that we could deliver a basic solution, not a 'cheap' one!

We made the shortlist of three, did an interview, but lost to someone HALF OUR PRICE.

So what started as a requirement for 'fit for purpose bid process certified as world class' and proposal training ended up as something completely different.

As I said 'The gap between what a potential customer wants and what they can afford...' or 'What they say they want and what they end up buying'.

A lesson learned idea.

Comments

[Ian]

Chris - I wonder to what degree that initial requirement was just something written because it "sounded good", rather than a real requirement?

I feel that nowadays, many RFPs are just filled with management hype and jargon written on autopilot like that. It's less that the customer changed their requirement - more that you pulled them up on something they had just stuck in there without really thinking about it.

Best Regards

Ian

[Chris]

Was the winner of this closer to this customer I wonder? Would more time spent on qualification activity have obviated the need to waste time on this bid, or ensured it was pitched at a level that met their true expectations?