Background to BidPartners
The concept of BidPartners was originally formulated in 2002. The founders had achieved an industry-leading win-rate on large business oriented ICT & Business Process Outsourcing contracts as the Strategic Sales team of a FTSE100 systems integrator. It became apparent that other companies may wish to buy-in a team covering the complete range of skills needed to win such deals to augment their own teams.
The ‘extra strategic deal A-team’ proposition was tested with a number of CEOs and business leaders, generating a positive response and a potentially viable business model. BidPartners was registered in 2003 and within its first 6 months had helped a US client to win their first contract with the UK Government. Within a year we were leading a multi-hundred million pound bid for a global blue-chip organisation.
Operating Model and Governance
BidPartners operates as a close-knit team rather than as a ‘bid management bodyshop’. The Directors lead the engagements with clients, bringing in additional skills as necessary. We aim to rapidly establish ourselves as integral members of our client’s team by demonstrating initiative, leadership, flexibility and the value of our experience from the outset.
We will only work with one bidder on any deal and so expect to be closely involved in qualification at multiple stages of a procurement. If we do not think our client can win then we will tell them early and recommend either remedial actions or to ‘qualify out’ and focus elsewhere. A key element of our ‘value-add’ is that we, as individuals, are passionate about winning and therefore will drive the activities and encourage the bid team to maximise the chances of achieving success.