It is often said, "Tenders are won before the tender is published". It is essential to be in conversation with a client before a tender is written and published. Having these conversations can be essential for a successful tender and can help you better understand the client's needs. Below are some reasons why engaging with a client prior to tendering can be important:

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1. Clarify the client's needs: Talking to the client will help you understand their needs and requirements. This can help you get a better idea of what is expected of you and how best to formulate your tender to meet those needs.
2. Understanding the client's preferences: Talking to the client can also help you understand their preferences and priorities. This can help you target your tender appropriately and formulate your proposals in a way that matches what the client finds important.
3. Discovering possible challenges: By talking to the client, you can also identify possible challenges that may arise in executing the contract. This allows you to include these challenges in your tender and provide solutions, which can help reduce risks and increase the chances of success.
4. Build trust: By having conversations with the client, you can build a relationship and gain their trust. This can help increase your chances of winning the tender.

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If you decide to have a conversation with the client before writing and publishing the tender, here are some important steps to take:

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1. Prepare well: Make sure you are well prepared before talking to the client. This means doing your research on the company and the industry they operate in. This will allow you to ask targeted questions and better tailor your proposals to their needs.
2. Be open and honest: During the interview, be open and honest about your knowledge and experience and your ability to meet the client's needs. This can help lay a strong foundation for further collaboration.
3. Ask targeted questions: Ask targeted questions to find out the client's needs and learn more about their expectations and priorities.
4. Listen actively: Listen actively to what the client has to say, what the organisation's issues are and try to find out the question behind the question.

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Of course, the tender still needs to be signalled in time to then start reading and responding to the tender documents. These steps cannot be eliminated but with the help of Brainial, many efficiency gains can be made here.

1. Intelligent Tender Signalling. With Brainial Tender Alert, you will find all information and documents about tenders in one central place. Based on the content of your historical tenders and keywords, the most promising tenders are automatically ranked in an all-in-one dashboard. Within Brainial Tender Alert, you can create unlimited search profiles for support multiple business units and labels. There are all kinds of filter options such as NUTS, publication date and language. 
2. Immediate first bid / no bid decision. When a seemingly suitable tender is spotted with Brainial Tender Alert, the tender can be automatically analysed with Brainial Tender Assist at the touch of a button. Brainial's machine learning models automatically extract key tender data, company-specific concerns & risks, and connect related information. This provides an instant initial qualification on the areas of interest for your organisation. 
3. Help with reading and understanding. The organisation-specific focal points are pre-marked so that you are immediately alerted to the important issues while reading. Instant notes can be taken and actions can be plotted while reading. There is no need to use separate excel lists for this purpose. After reading the documents, the organisation-specific points of interest can be used to understand all the important topics. All information from all related documents is put together by Brainial. In addition to understanding the documents, contradictions can be quickly identified. 
4. Find information fast. Use the AI-based search assistant to quickly find information in both current and historical tender information. All documents can be searched literally and in related meanings at the same time. The content of historical answer texts can also be easily found so that certain texts can be recycled into new answer texts.

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Conclusion

The chances of winning are significantly increased if you are in discussion with a client before a tender is written and published. Ultimately, the tender still needs to be answered to win the contract. By using the all-in-one AI-based solution Brainial Tender Assist, tenders can be qualified, analysed and understood >50% faster. Wondering what we can do for your organisation? Schedule a demo with us.

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