Drive out inefficiencies in your bid response process

Kay Oldham Date published: Aug 25, 23

Doing business in the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry is a highly lucrative opportunity.

The United States federal government has a $6.5 trillion budget and spends around $665 billion with external contractors, according to recent data from Brookings. While UK government data reveals that its agencies spent £379 billion on procurement in 2021/22, up from £295.5 billion in 2019/20.

To stay ahead of the competition, it’s vital for potential defense suppliers to understand the importance of a high-quality proposal that ticks all the boxes for defense contractors.

Bidding for defense contracts

Improving the quality of your defense bids relies on embracing tools and technologies that enhance collaboration and the quality of your submission. To wage war on inefficiency, you need to consider the following factors.

Understand tender requirements

Procurement processes for A&D tenders are highly regulated to ensure efficiency, fairness, and transparency.

The first step is identifying the need for goods and services, which could be due to changes in demand, the introduction of new regulations, or aging infrastructure. Once that need is identified, the defense contractor will create a tender document outlining the goods and services required, the evaluation criteria, and the bid submission deadline.

Target appropriate tenders

Armed with that knowledge, it’s essential to target appropriate tenders for your business. Look for tenders that your products and services would be a good match for, rather than targeting those you have little chance of winning and would only waste time and resources. Also, verify that your business meets the requirements laid out by the tender, closely assess their requests before writing your proposal and then address those needs directly.

Recycle successful bid knowledge

Many organizations waste time and resources starting every new bid from scratch.
This risks knowledge from previous submissions being lost and business-critical data and correspondence being locked away in email chains and legacy tools. However, using proposal management software enables you to replicate successful bids and compile attachments, email interactions, data and documentation from previous projects.

Highlight your credentials

A successful bid for services across the A&D supply chain must focus on your company’s strengths and experience level.
Much of the proposal will focus on the buyer’s needs, but explaining why you are best suited for the tender is also critical. Highlight any relevant experience and success that promotes what makes your company stand out from the competition.

Assess bid pricing

Another critical element of any bid for an A&D supply chain contract is considering the cost. A buyer will typically be looking for the best value for money, so you need to ensure your bid offers excellent value for your business while also offering the best possible quality of services. Trying to undercut competitors by offering the cheapest option may be tempting, but this could cost you time and resources in the long run.

How to improve defense industry bid efficiency

With these considerations in mind, you can boost the efficiency of your bid using collaboration and document management tools. Implementing these solutions offers significant benefits when you come to create, draft, and proof proposals for defense and aerospace tenders.

Protect sensitive data: It goes without saying that when applying for work with A&D contractors, you need to keep data secure. That includes storing data in secure digital vaults, keeping confidential sales and financial information safe, and preventing former employees from stealing data and taking it to a competitor.

Get a grip on version control: When managing complex documents, it’s easy for mistakes to be made and people to work from outdated versions. By implementing technology to manage version control for you, you can make sure everyone is working from the same document, contributions aren’t lost and previous versions can be accessed easily if they’re needed.

Multi-user reviews: Preparing a comprehensive defense supply chain bid often requires input from experts across multiple departments – this can present a challenge. Instead of manually combining everyone’s contribution, using specialist software that allows hundreds of reviewers to work on the document together simultaneously saves hours of time.

Secure global collaboration: When your document review teams need to discuss parts of the bid but they’re scattered across multiple locations, bottlenecks become commonplace and it can be difficult to get bids across the line. Technology solves this by offering seamless collaboration which enables teams to discuss, share, and amend commercially sensitive documents from a single platform.

Manage tight timescales: Defense industry bids can have short deadlines requiring a quick turnaround. You don’t have time to waste chasing contributors, collating feedback, or managing document amendments – you need a tool to drives engagement among the review team and reduces the administrative burden from document owners.

Discover how businesses have driven out their inefficiencies

Read more about how businesses have driven out their inefficiencies to win more work in the A&D sector.

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