3 reasons why you should be utilising earlier review dates
By Ryan May, Tender and Grant Specialist, Perth
Reviews are an important aspect of the tender writing process. Without them, all semblance of order and control over the development of a tender flies out the window and your chances of winning plummet. But when should you be conducting reviews?
Often a pattern of bronze – silver – gold is followed, bronze providing an opportunity to ensure development has begun on the right foot, silver a chance to pause to see where refinements should be made and gold the opportunity to see the document in an all but final state. Typically, these reviews are staggered such that bronze usually occurs early on in the bid, silver a few weeks later and finally gold only a week or two after silver, perhaps a week before submission. These work, but they are by no means optimal. Why is that, and why are earlier review dates better? Let’s find out.
Obtain clarity earlier
Earlier review dates will help you to identify ambiguities in the questions and criteria faster. This is particularly important on shorter tenders, where there is little time to waste! Knowing what needs a request for information (RFI) in the early stages of the tender process will accelerate the process of asking and receiving this information, allowing more time for writers and subject matter experts to develop a sophisticated response.
Increase engagement
Earlier review dates mean that those responsible for reviews lay their eyes across documents earlier, which is particularly important in instances where reviewers don’t have heavy engagement with the submission. This provides additional time to address their concerns, explore the windows of opportunity that they identify and even opens the door to additional passes of the document that then increase the overall refinement of the submission. The impact? A discernible increase to the quality of your submission.
Mitigate the last-minute rush
How often does it happen? The submission date is looming over the horizon, and the list of items left to close is nowhere near as short as it should be. Perhaps gold review turned up a number of issues that had been lying dormant throughout the tender, or maybe connections to your win themes weren’t strong enough, requiring a hurricane rush through the documents to ensure their integration. The result is high stress and a messy finish.
With earlier review dates, this doesn’t happen. Problems peering out from beneath the page are picked up earlier, and documents are closed sooner. Even in cases where major issues are discovered late in the game, accelerated deadlines mean that you don’t need to worry about ensuring other schedules are closed out on top of this new problem, because they already are. Finishing the submission becomes an exercise involving far less stress, facilitating more time for thought out, refined solutions.
Earlier deadlines are your lifeline
Next time you’re starting a tender submission, give it a shot – bring your review dates forward (within reason, of course). It won’t hurt to try, and it will help you in creating more refined, cohesive and competitive submissions. Even small adjustments can have an impact! Don’t worry if some dates wind up getting pushed back to what they may have been under a ‘business as usual’ model either – even if only a few schedules wind up finished earlier, everyone’s lives will have been made that much easier.
Looking for help with more than just review dates? Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you! Here at Tender Plus, we excel in everything tender-related. We are enthused about helping you create the best submission you can and offer tender assistance encompassing tender writing, tender coordination, tender management and so much more.
Enjoyed this post? You might like some of our other blogs, such as Easy wins in editing and The 3 aspects of a tender you need to take responsibility for.