Customer Reviews

Bids, Tenders & Proposals: Winning Business Through Best Practice

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This is based more on the European way of doing things, but Harold Lewis provides loads of terrific advice on how to approach both public sector and private sector bids. He also covers how to compete for funding for research and other kinds of projects.

The author takes a very practical approach. He wants you to know what you need to do to win. This includes deciding whether to even go after a request for information or a request for bid. Not all offers represent legitimate opportunities. You might be used to hammer down the price of a competitor. The offer might be in a fringe business for you that will end up costing more to support than you can make. You have to evaluate it carefully.

Lewis teaches you about the procedural realities and political realities that affect public sector contract. He also teaches you how to focus on your value add and creating a proposal and presentation that stand out for the private sector.

The chapters are all short and full of bullet point ideas you can use as appropriate.

If you want to improve your bids and make your company more competitive in winning more contracts, this is a fine resource. But don't mistake it for a sample book that offers you plug-and-play samples. This is more valuable.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

This book contains very useful information on bid preparation; however, you still need to have a number of additional resources on tendering to complement your knowledge base, including a good set of "market proven" sample tender documents and their corresponding proposals.

This book provides a very good set of frameworks for approaching and assessing Bids / Tendering.

It is quite 'step by step' which is a positive and outlines some of the softer factors (political) that need to be considered.

Worth purchasing - as it is a good foundation book which can be referred to on an ongoing basis.

Proposal writing expert Harold Lewis offers scads of helpful tips and step-by-step guides for successful bidding. The author helps readers evaluate bidding opportunities, explains what to do (and not do) in creating a bid, and discusses how to make a compelling presentation. While the book does provide some model forms, it is not a book of sample bids and presentations for those wanting to plug and play. Instead, it focuses on teaching you to make uniquely compelling proposals and bids. If you want to create and sustain a winning process for making bids, getAbstract recommends this practical guide to you.