The companies we work for are always aiming to grow and expand our services into other sectors. This strategic pivoting often requires tendering for sectors and services we do not have the collateral, personnel or company experience needed to achieve a strong score with the client.
Here are a few tips for companies and bid teams to counter these issues.
Strategic hires
A strategic hire on a conditional offer is a great way to counter a lack of specific experience. Working together with the Talent Acquisition team, a strong candidate with specific skills and experience is a surefire way of demonstrating to the client you have what it takes to deliver the service. While finding the right person is tough, a strong CV, their agreement to a conditional offer and to attending interviews can make or break a new foray into a strategic sector.
Collating experience from across the company
Even if your company may not have delivered projects in a specific sector, your personnel may well have done so. Reaching out to your people is a good way to demonstrate experience you may not have internally. You must be clear, though, that this ‘experience’ is from team members prior to them working at your company. The last thing you need is to have your integrity questioned!
Demonstrate your transferable skills
Representations of how your expertise is applicable to the new sector can be very effective in demonstrating your transferable skills. High tech industries are a good example of this: many of the skills gained in one tech industry are directly applicable to another.
There’s nothing like strong business development
While the above points can lend a hand to entering a new sector, there is nothing like building strong relationships with clients before the RFP comes out. As much as you try with CVs, team experience and a demonstration of transferable skills, if you have not convinced the client of your ability to do the job, you may be seen as just making up the numbers.
Stay the course and don’t give up!
Entering a new sector requires the efforts of senior leaders, concerted business development activities, bid teams and strong candidates. You may not get the job the first time, nor even the third or fourth but this approach pays off in the end. Stay the course and you can find your way around procurement teams’ complex evaluation criteria by hitting the buttons of experience and expertise.
Top comments (0)