Looking for bid writing support? Follow our tried and tested model

[Last modified: July 2021]

At Hudson Succeed, we pride ourselves on delivering high quality bid writing support. Collectively, we have over 60 years of experience and an 87% success rate. It’s fair to say that we are the best in the business when it comes to bid writing support.

To support our clients, we developed the DAPCAS model.

What is the DAPCAS model?

The DAPCAS model was created in-house by Head of Bid Management, Dan Hall. DAPCAS is an acronym for Decipher, Assess, Plan, Compose, Analyse and Submit. When it comes to tendering for contracts bid writing can be complex which is why we invented this model to condense the process in its simplest form.

Decipher  

Our first tip for bid writing support is before you start tendering you must decipher the opportunities. Bidding for any opportunity in the hope that it will be successful is a waste of time and money. Not only that, but it weakens your overall tender approach. Three things to consider in the deciphering process are:

• What services do you want to deliver?
• What location/s do you want to deliver these services in?
• Who is your ideal buyer?

Once you have decided on your opportunity you can sign up to our sector-specific tendering portals. You will receive daily tender opportunities that are specific to your service.

Our Hudson Discover portals are time-saving tools. Each day, our team of opportunity trackers manually search for new tenders and upload them to the relevant portal. This ensures maximum relevancy in your search. Our 11 sector-specific tendering portals include:

• Creative Tenders
• Healthcare Tenders
• Facilities Tenders
• Construction Tenders
• Technology Tenders
• Transport Tenders
• Research Tenders
• Consultancy Tenders
• HR Tenders
• Finance Tenders
• Hospitality Tenders

Assess

The ultimate question to ask yourself is to bid or not to bid?

Once you’ve deciphered what you’re tendering for, and you’ve found an opportunity you need to decide whether to bid. The contract title doesn’t tell you everything so it’s important you know exactly what you’re tendering for. A few things to think about when assessing whether to bid or not are:

• Have you delivered contracts similar to this before?
• What is your Unique Selling Point (USP)?
• Can you afford it?
• Does the opportunity align with your company’s long-term strategy?

Plan

Another important bid writing support tip is to plan. Your bid will only be as successful as the planning put into it. Each tender is different, and the planning involved in it must match the specification. You should set out a list of what needs to be completed and the timeframe to complete it by. An effective plan will lead to an effective bid.

The length of an Invitation to Tender (ITT) can vary from 10 pages to 50 or more. Each contains information that is crucial to consider. Therefore, you must develop a concise plan to correspond with the tender. We advise reading each document one by one with the following in mind:

• Read the instructions – allow plenty of time as the instructions will contain all the important information you need to know.
• Submission deadline – the deadline date is important, if you submit your bid just one minute late you can be disqualified.
• Clarification details – if there are some aspects of the document that don’t make sense, remember to ask questions.

Compose

Just like the tendering process the bid writing process can be a long and complex process. Many people don’t have the time or knowledge to write detailed bids in-house. Writing isn’t for everyone, especially when you’re busy running a business. This is why we offer our bid writing support.

If you do wish to write the bid yourself, a structure to follow to write a successful bid is:

• Point

You should state what you are going to do. The buyer wants to know what you can do, not what you will try to do. Your point should be clear and concise so the buyer understands exactly what you can deliver.

• Evidence

It’s no good talking about what you can do if you can’t back up what you’re saying. Demonstrate why you should win the bid by providing evidence such as case studies and statistics.

• Explain

Explain how you will deliver the desired outcome.

• Structure

One of how our top bid writing support tips is how to structure your answer. Some points to consider include:

• Format – Use subheadings and bullet points to clearly format your response. You can break down the question to use these for subheadings. Bullet points can keep your response in order. The evaluator wants to read a response that is clearly laid out. If they have to read your response more than once it isn’t clear enough.
• Simple language – You should clearly explain everything and avoid using complicated jargon. You shouldn’t assume the buyer knows what you mean.
• Word count – You should aim for your response to be as close to the word or page counts as possible. The word/page count is there for a reason. If the buyer asks for a 1,000 word answer, they expect a clear and detailed response. Writing one paragraph won’t suffice. Although it’s important to reach the word count, don’t waffle just to add extra words. Your answer should be relevant to the question.

Analyse

Analysing your work regularly throughout the writing process is something we strongly recommend as part of our bid writing support. We suggest you create several drafts and have them reviewed by a few colleagues. You could even ask a new colleague to overlook the work. This ensures the inner workings of your company can be understood by someone with little knowledge on the company. You should never assume that the buyer is already familiar with your organisation.

Submit

The final process of the DAPCAS model is to submit the bid. Although this may seem like a simple step, it is actually quite daunting to a newcomer. Always ensure you allow plenty of time to submit your bid ahead of the deadline. If the bid is due at 12pm and you submit it at 12.01pm your bid will not be accepted. Once you have submitted your bid, you should receive some acknowledgement that your bid has been received. This is usually done via an email or online portal.

Aside from the DAPCAS model, our final tip to bid writing support is the importance of doing your research. When bidding for a contract always make sure that you meet the eligibility criteria. You don’t want to waste time preparing for a bid to realise you don’t meet the criteria. For example, check that your business:

• Meets the economic and financial standing – your annual turnover, financial ratio and your insurance
• Has enough experience
• Meets the minimum turnover threshold
• Has the resources to carry out the contract.

Need bid writing support for an immanent tender?

Our sister company, Hudson Succeed are here to help you with writing bids. Our team of professionals have over 60 years of experience and they write to win.

They offer four services:

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect contract for your business, why not send it our way?

Once you decide to ahead with a bid, you will be assigned to one of our Bid Writers. The process doesn’t require you to have any formal meetings with your Bid Writer. Communication can be made via phone, email or Zoom.

Our Bid Writers can take care of it all for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own tender response and need someone to double-check it for errors, Tender Mentor can help. The Bid Team will proofread your work for any inconsistencies, grammar or spelling mistakes. They’ll also ensure that it’s in line with the specification before you submit.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready 4-week programme is perfect for businesses that have never tendered before. A Bid Writer will work with you to make sure you have everything in place to tender successfully. Tender Ready offers your business:

• A 12-month subscription to one Hudson Discover portal.
• Access to Global Bid Directors and Senior Bidding Professionals.
• An Organisation-wide Bid library, including 3 case studies, 5 CVs and 8 policies.
• Additional flexible benefit options.

Tender Improvement

If you’ve been tendering but aren’t seeing the results you want, our Tender Improvement package can help. Our Bid Team will assess your previous responses and tender documents, working with you to improve for future submissions.

Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering efforts – even when you’re busy. Our two new time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and success rate when tendering.

Bid writing training

Tender VLE houses free and upgraded bid writing masterclasses.

Join the UK’s first ever virtual learning environment for a whole range of

free tender-related videos. Whether you have years of tendering

experience or are starting out from scratch, Tender VLE will have

something for you.

See something you like? Contact our team for a quick chat and start your Tender VLE journey today.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

• How to win a tender
• What is a Bid Writer?
• The tendering process
• Writing winning bids
• 7 tips for tendering for contracts
• Tips for bid management
• Bid writing services
• The types of tendering procedures
• Writing bids
• Bid writing consultants
• Submitting a tender response
• And many more.