AI – How to utilise AI in bidding strategically and successfully

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been reshaping the way people work over the past few years. According to Forbes magazine, 78% of organisations now use AI and 92% of students, which proves that its presence is only getting stronger. Organisations have been moving towards AI for all types of business support, including public sector bidding. While some teams have started using AI to support the generation of proposals, we do not recommend such an approach. We believe that there can be more strategic and successful ways to utilise artificial intelligence in bidding, from Pre-bid qualification to strategy identification and review support. This paper explores innovative, strategic, value-adding ways to integrate AI into bidding.

Last year the team at our strategic partners, Contracts Advance, (https://contractsadvance.co.uk) wrote a paper looking at whether ChatGPT could write a high- scoring bid response. The result….it couldn’t. The response was vague, lacking content, context and evidence, all key elements to a successful bid response. However, at Healthfield Consulting, we believe that AI can be used strategically to support the generation of a successful bid response, and we want to advise some useful ways that this can be done.

Pre-bid / Qualification

At Healthfield we always emphasise the importance of pre-bid engagement and qualification in bidding and although human interaction and decision making must still be used, AI can be used to support this and improve efficiency.

AI’s ability to read and summarise documents (especially when tender packs are huge) is a real benefit, and a company can do this to then analyse the tender opportunities and compare them to your qualification’s checklists, highlighting key opportunities that meet criteria. Although it is important that all tender documents are read and understood by the bid manager when bidding, this can be used as a way to speed up and somewhat automate the qualification process.

To add to this, if you have a bid library (and you have a private AI who has access), you can use it to identify previous responses that share similar questions, themes or strategies to guide your response. This can support the decision to bid, no bid, guide response planning and support on writing itself. However, it’s worth noting that we do not recommend simply copying and pasting, as not only does this leave room for errors, but it also means you may not be hitting their exact requirements. Risk detection is an important part of qualification and pre-bid work. Once AI has read the documentation, it can be used to highlight any risks that it identifies, for you to use as part of your qualification process, pre-bid research or kick- off meetings.

Strategy and Win Theme Identification & Idea Generation

The use of artificial intelligence in identifying and generating strategies and ideas for bidding can be a real asset in the planning stage of bidding.

With AI’s ability to read and digest a large amount of information, companies can easily see where their existing strategies, mobilisation plans, and ideas may fit, but it can also suggest strategies and/or ideas that would fit the requirements that you possibly hadn’t thought of. Companies can get stuck trying to fit existing ideas into a requirement that doesn’t quite match (think square peg, round hole), and sometimes having AI suggestions as to alternative options, may open the eyes of the bidder and get them to look at other options that may enhance the overall offering and therefore the bid.

Social value is another area where you can end up in a square peg, round hole situation and AI can support. Companies get stuck in a box when it comes to social value initiatives, thinking about what they have delivered historically or their corporate social responsibility. However, these initiatives may not fit the bill, especially if you’re looking at another geographical area and therefore AI can be used to analyse the requirements, the authorities social value initiatives and other factors such as demographics and geographical problem areas to help you think outside the box, by highlighting key initiatives that tick all boxes.

It is worth noting that not everything AI generates should be used in responses, and it should be used as a tool rather than a bible. Although AI may have identified a strategy that may fit the specification, you need to be able to show how, why, when you’ll deliver this, and provide examples where you have facilitated similar previously to support your response. Remember, KPI’s will be monitored and published moving forward under the procurement act, and if you include a strategy, initiative or offeringin your response, without being able to deliver, this may affect your relationship with the buyer and future contracts due to KPI data being released and monitored.

Pricing & Your Commercial Proposition

Preparing pricing for a tender bid is a delicate balancing act — you want to be competitive enough to win, but still profitable and sustainable. Building an accurate cost model is a very important part of the process, so you can clearly understand your direct costs, indirect costs, contingencies and profit margins. AI can support you with scenario modelling, as it can simulate multiple pricing options, margin sensitivities, and even competitor price predictions.

Response internal review

At Healthfield Consulting, we always recommend some form of review structure in your bidding drafting process, whether this be a couple of additional people internally to read and comment on drafts, or an external review. We advise this as writers can get word blind, missing key areas that have omissions against the specification, lack context or clarity or have simple spelling and grammar issues. However, we understand that some companies don’t have the capacity to undertake an internal review process, and in this instance, AI can act as a support in the reviewing process and could be used in conjunction with external professional reviews.

Although AI cannot offer a fully comprehensive review, such as external professional bid reviewers, it can highlight key areas where responses are lacking structure, positive and persuasive language as well as proofreading to check for spelling and grammatical errors.

Conclusion

While AI can certainly be a very useful tool that can help you save valuable time, it should never be used as a substitute for your team’s expertise. We would recommend that you treat it as an administrative tool with bid qualification, gathering information, modelling and idea generation. However, you should always make strategic decisions, check compliance, and ensure the final bid reflects your company’s voice and capabilities.