When faced with a large number of bids to write, every organisation at some point considers whether or not to outsource their proposal writing activity to a skilled proposal writer. There are a number of factors involved with deciding if outsourcing is the best solution for your company, including the resource you have, the size of the bid and the time you can spend upon proposal writing.

In essence, the outsourcing question can be effectively determined by weighing up the investment against the potential profit from a winning bid. Return on investment can be calculated not just in terms of winning a single bid, and the value, but the potential leads which a new contract may open up for repeat business, and the way in which a winning project will influence other customers in their purchasing decisions.

Keeping all proposal operations in-house means that a company is able to invest in their staff on an ongoing basis, strengthening their bid team and providing tender writing training and experience to enhance the proposal writing process. The downside to having a strong bid team in place at all times is that at quiet times, you run the risk of needless expenditure when your team have little to do. Investing in a team to the extent that you can comfortably manage peak times invariably will lead to some periods of inactivity, where staff remuneration packages (with pensions, benefits, holiday entitlement and sick pay) may clock up a large expenditure which is not mitigated through winning contracts.

The benefits of in-house bid capability development is primarily realised by the strength of having a team in place which fully understands the organisation, and has the experience and relationships necessary to create compliant proposals quickly and efficiently. Hiring a sub-contractor to produce proposals will invariably take an amount of briefing and orientation before the proposal writer can gain enough knowledge to produce a compelling and engaging account of your company's activities. However at Tenders-UK we have developed a simply and effective way of quickly gathering the information we need to write the proposal.

The following considerations are worth taking in to account, prior to making a decision on outsourcing proposal writing:

 

• What are the company goals for business development? Is there adequate budget and head count for full time staff members within the proposal writing team?
• How consistent are the numbers of proposal, bid and tender opportunities? Does the amount of work warrant developing your in-house capabilities?
• How likely is it that you can secure talented, skilled and experienced bid staff for your allocated in-house budget?
• How does the cost of the in-house personnel compare to the cost of outsourcing your proposal writing?

 

One of the major advantages of using an external proposal writer is they will bring a new perspective, knowledge and ideas which will help to add to the continuous improvement of your internal proposal writing capability.