Can you use AI to help you with bids and tenders?
What role can AI play in bids and tender responses? Is there any point in hiring bid writers now that we have AI?
These are fair and important questions!
AI can absolutely help you with bid and tender responses
I would probably argue that, especially if you are a smaller organization, that you’d be crazy not to use it to help you – particularly when you don’t have the resources of larger players who can afford to hire big teams of dedicated writers and managers for large-scale and high-value bids.
AI can help improve the structure, drafting and flow of your responses and strengthen any points you are trying to make. It can also help ensure you’re not missing any key requirements in your draft answers.
You can also use AI to manage your existing stock of bid material and tender responses to make your response to future bids more efficient including by retrieving previous answers and giving you a starting point from which to develop new responses.
AI can generate ideas, for example, about how you might improve your services or how to compete more effectively with companies in your sector. This is also where the limitations with AI start…
Don’t just rely on AI for everything!
AI tools like ChatGPT rely on existing and publicly available content. Therefore, there is a limit to the creativity and innovation that you unlock by using ChatGPT or other tools like Google Gemini and Microsoft’s Co-pilot.
Commissioning authorities are crying out for innovative and creative ideas for responding to their organizational challenges (e.g. funding pressures) and the key challenges faced in their fields – including, for example, high rates of reoffending for those on short sentences and poor educational attainment and outcomes for disadvantaged and under-privileged communities. AI can only go so far in terms of generating genuinely fresh, creative and innovative ideas. Someone needs to come up with the ideas first before AI can do anything with it…
You still need to invest time in collective and genuine creative problem solving and innovation – e.g. coming together as a team in the form of workshops – as this has benefits far beyond just the improved drafting of bid responses including, importantly, improving employee engagement). If you’re not already doing this then you risk becoming less competitive in the longer term.
The other significant limitation of AI is– given it relies on publicly available information –it will not tell you what your competitors are working on ‘behind closed doors’. AI is not going to tell you the kinds of things you hear from front-line colleagues and partners, and which don’t get written down (with the possible exception of a line or two sometimes in e.g. relevant CQC or inspectorate reports).
You still need to invest time in developing and maintaining your relationships with partners and stakeholders so you understand the issues you and your industry are facing and so you can think about what that means for your product and service offers.
Conclusion
In summary, AI is a great tool – but use it judiciously. Understand the limitations of AI and think carefully about where and how to invest your valuable time to greatest effect.
We can help you leverage the power of AI to improve your bid performance and ensure your future success. If you have any questions or need help including developing a new commercial strategy, reviewing your product and service offers and competitive positioning (or just reviewing and writing tender responses) then please get in touch!
