Of all industries, the transport sector is arguably
one of those most at risk of its services being
viewed as commodities. It’s a depressing reality
— but there is an answer.
If a company struggles to differentiate its product or
service from that of its competition, the first element of
any corrective strategy should be to seek to understand its
prospects and its clients at a deeply detailed level.
Not all companies do this well. Most don’t. Why am
I confident to make such a sweeping statement? I see the
evidence on a daily basis as a bid strategist and writer, and
as an evaluator and bid coach.
When I take on a new client, almost without exception,
that organisation’s previous bids, tenders and proposals
literally shout self-centricity.
Those that think they don’t, are always surprised
to learn just how much further they could go in
taking a genuinely client-centric approach and,
in the process, de-commoditising themselves far
more effectively.
Symptoms of self-centricity
In this column, I’m going to demonstrate how
a self-centric perspective shows up in a bidder’s
documentation. I’ll focus on just one part of a bid
document — the executive summary.
Here are two examples that literally whack an
evaluator between the eyes with this syndrome on
the bidder’s part.
Within the allowable word count of this column,
I’m limited to demonstrating either the problem or the
solution. I’ve chosen to highlight the problem and let
my future columns provide tuition on solutions.
Without an understanding of what ‘wrong’ looks like
and why it’s wrong, ‘right’ isn’t so easily identifiable nor
the logic behind it so obvious.
Example One: ‘We’, ‘Our’, ‘Us’
I once evaluated a bid, the executive summary of which
featured the seller’s name no less than 17 times in
a short series of introductory paragraphs.
Don’t laugh; a large percentage of these key front
pieces end up with the seller’s or service provider’s
name (or ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘us’) at the beginning of
most paragraphs.
This indicates a lack of knowledge, understanding and
caring about the client organisation and its issues and
priorities, as well as a lack of listening skills and
a probable low ‘care factor’ on the part of the bidder.
The propensity for a bidder to communicate in such
a way that the world revolves around them i.e. the
supplier or service provider, rather than around the
prospect/client makes it obvious to the client and its
evaluators that the entire working relationship is likely
to evolve in this same, very predictable, direction.
This — in the client’s mind — places that bidder
in the same self-focused category as the majority of its
competition. And this, in turn, relegates it to a largely
undifferentiated status.
Example Two: Framing strengths
Most executive summaries focus almost
exclusively on getting across the bidder’s strengths.
Some go further and communicate the purported
competitive uniqueness of the offering. Few however,
investigate and explain the specific relevance of these
to the client and its operating environment.
This comes across as arrogant, lazy or both. It’s also
a wasted opportunity. Regardless of any information
requests made in a client’s tender call documentation,
the client’s interest in the service provider centres
around the relevance of that information to its own
organisation, priorities, issues and potential contract
with the bidder.
Let’s come back to de-commoditisation.
The extent to which your company can demonstrate
a relevant and competitively superior understanding of
the client organisation and how your strengths and the
aspects of your offering uniquely position you to solve
the client’s problem and/or achieve that organisation’s
desires, is the margin by which you’ll be out in front
of your competition.
The extent to which you are out in front
of your competition (on elements of your offer
other than price) is the extent to which you have
successfully differentiated your company and your
service or solution.
In turn, the extent to which you’ve differentiated is
the extent to which you free yourself from the
price trap into which most operators in heavily
commoditised industries — such as freight and
transport — otherwise fall.
O
f all industries, the transport sector is arguably
one of those most at risk of its services being
viewed as commodities. It’s a depressing reality
— but there is an answer.
If a company struggles to differentiate its product or
service from that of its competition, the first element of
any corrective strategy should be to seek to understand its
prospects and its clients at a deeply detailed level.
Not all companies do this well. Most don’t. Why am
I confident to make such a sweeping statement? I see the
evidence on a daily basis as a bid strategist and writer, and
as an evaluator and bid coach.
When I take on a new client, almost without exception,
that organisation’s previous bids, tenders and proposals
literally shout self-centricity.
Those that think they don’t, are always surprised
to learn just how much further they could go in
taking a genuinely client-centric approach and,
in the process, de-commoditising themselves far
more effectively.
Symptoms of self-centricity
In this column, I’m going to demonstrate how
a self-centric perspective shows up in a bidder’s
documentation. I’ll focus on just one part of a bid
document — the executive summary.
Here are two examples that literally whack an
evaluator between the eyes with this syndrome on
the bidder’s part.
Within the allowable word count of this column,
I’m limited to demonstrating either the problem or the
solution. I’ve chosen to highlight the problem and let
my future columns provide tuition on solutions.
Without an understanding of what ‘wrong’ looks like
and why it’s wrong, ‘right’ isn’t so easily identifiable nor
the logic behind it so obvious.
Example One: ‘We’, ‘Our’, ‘Us’
I once evaluated a bid, the executive summary of which
featured the seller’s name no less than 17 times in
a short series of introductory paragraphs.
Don’t laugh; a large percentage of these key front
pieces end up with the seller’s or service provider’s
name (or ‘we’, ‘our’ and ‘us’) at the beginning of
most paragraphs.
This indicates a lack of knowledge, understanding and
caring about the client organisation and its issues and
priorities, as well as a lack of listening skills and
a probable low ‘care factor’ on the part of the bidder.
The propensity for a bidder to communicate in such
a way that the world revolves around them i.e. the
supplier or service provider, rather than around the
prospect/client makes it obvious to the client and its
evaluators that the entire working relationship is likely
to evolve in this same, very predictable, direction.
This — in the client’s mind — places that bidder
in the same self-focused category as the majority of its
competition. And this, in turn, relegates it to a largely
undifferentiated status.
Example Two: Framing strengths
Most executive summaries focus almost
exclusively on getting across the bidder’s strengths.
Some go further and communicate the purported
competitive uniqueness of the offering. Few however,
investigate and explain the specific relevance of these
to the client and its operating environment.
This comes across as arrogant, lazy or both. It’s also
a wasted opportunity. Regardless of any information
requests made in a client’s tender call documentation,
the client’s interest in the service provider centres
around the relevance of that information to its own
organisation, priorities, issues and potential contract
with the bidder.
Let’s come back to de-commoditisation.
The extent to which your company can demonstrate
a relevant and competitively superior understanding of
the client organisation and how your strengths and the
aspects of your offering uniquely position you to solve
the client’s problem and/or achieve that organisation’s
desires, is the margin by which you’ll be out in front
of your competition.
The extent to which you are out in front
of your competition (on elements of your offer
other than price) is the extent to which you have
successfully differentiated your company and your
service or solution.
In turn, the extent to which you’ve differentiated is
the extent to which you free yourself from the
price trap into which most operators in heavily
commoditised industries — such as freight and
transport — otherwise fall.
