A multinational technology company with the market’s best-known software & hardware products achieved both qualitative and quantitative results after adopting the best end-to-end proposal management services provided by Shipleywins.
Overview
The multinational technology company discovered that due to the in-house, localised and decentralised locations the quality of services was not up to the mark. They further realised that multiple touchpoints with the client stakeholders led to missed opportunities and lack of trust eventually leading to poor quality of proposal responses which had a lot of room for improvement.
Using Shipleywins proposal management services, the company could develop winning proposals by optimising the expertise of experienced proposal managers, writers, and designers improving their chances of winning contracts.
Customer Introduction
A diversified technology corporation that designs computer software, electronic devices, personal computing devices, and associated services, and operates in multiple countries. The company also publishes books and multimedia titles, produces its own line of hybrid tablet computers, offers e-mail services, and sells electronic game systems and computer peripherals (input/output devices). It has sales offices throughout the world.
Problem
The company was growing rapidly but with growth comes numerous challenges. Some of the challenges faced by the company before the engagement were:
- The company did not have a centralised proposal development centre
- The company also realised that they were unable to create a single touchpoint for all client stakeholders like Sales Head, Sales Managers, Pursuit Leads, and Account Managers
- Focus was also required on the professional development and upskilling of the proposal team as per the recent market trends
- The proposal team was lacking the expertise of graphics enhancements required in proposals and presentations
The company realised that they were missing on a lot of potential opportunities and untapped business due to their inability to have a proper process, structure, and tools in place. Missing out on potential opportunities also meant loss of revenue, market share, and competitive edge. It also affected the company’s reputation, customer satisfaction, and overall growth.
All these factors put together were hindering the company’s process of creating standardised and good quality proposals. Taking into consideration all these issues, the company set forward a plan in place to focus on better output quality, team bonding, knowledge sharing, people development and an overall program governance which would help to achieve the targets.
Solution by Shipleywins
Shipleywins offered a solution bucket which addressed all the issues the company was facing.
- For increasing the Output Quality: A Quality Assurance Programme (QAP) was run in collaboration with the leadership and feedback on reviews of proposals were provided to proposal managers, writers, and graphics specialists. Proposal managers could create unmatched quality customer documents (presentations and proposals) with the help of graphic designers and writers.
- Professional Development:
- Team bonding was established by rotating sub-groups, discussing common knowledge areas in bid management, cultural exchanges and arranging common collaborative proposal forums. Various activities were introduced for knowledge sharing like workshops on writing winning proposals, monthly team meetings were set up, and guest lectures on better understanding of proposal management were carried out.
- Team coaching and training sessions were conducted for various Certification programs. The team was also guided to write papers for publishing in university forums, attend and learn from APMP meets which contributed to personal development of the team.
- Programme Governance:
- Joint account management was carried out between countries, weekly programme reviews were discussed with leadership, monthly governance report was sent to leadership, and yearly sponsor meeting on strategy and progress was made a mandate.
- All hands team meetings once in a quarter, monthly progress review meetings, one-to one meetings with each member were conducted to gain control and understand status for all issues.
Results & Benefits
Shipleywins demonstrated itself as a pioneer in addressing all the challenges faced by the company and validated their success through both qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
Qualitative Outcomes:
The leadership team received appreciation emails from stakeholders and end customers every month which resulted in a qualitative result of 100% end-customer satisfaction.
Quantitative Outcomes:
- Increased win rates by 47%
- Quality of writing proposals improved with a score of 7/10
- Employee attrition was reduced to 0% as compared to 25% in the previous years
- 2 new services lines were introduced which helped the stakeholders in their daily work
- Single touchpoint for stakeholders proved to be a boon and they could concentrate on more winning opportunities
- Quality of output was bound to improve after all these measures
- Employee satisfaction was at its best with a score of 4.79/5
Conclusion
The multinational technology company was facing various challenges due to localised and decentralised processing locations, missed opportunities, lack of trust, and limited employee growth. Shipleywins offered an end-to-end proposal management service that helped the company achieve qualitative and quantitative results. By implementing various measures, the company was able to improve output quality, team bonding, knowledge sharing, and employee development, which resulted in 47% win rate and 100% customer satisfaction. These results helped the company reduce employee attrition, introduce new services, and improve its reputation and competitive advantage, ensuring long-term success and sustainability.