In
the course of my career, I have provided bids for many projects. How hard can it be?
Bidding
on a Project is a process - a potentially expensive process. A project includes things like parts, labor
and a profit margin. An error in any of
these calculations can severely hurt your company.
If
losing money on a project isn't bad enough, not pleasing your customer can
compound the problem.
Our
projects tend to be between $10k & $50k.
I stick to an informal process that looks like this:
- Gather project
requirements
- Gather pricing
- Prepare a
project plan / Statement of work
- Prepare a
price quote for the customer
- Pass it by the
2 owners for review / approval
- Meet with the
customer to go over the project plan and the pricing
Our
company is small, so a loss on one of these deals is a big deal. I go out of my way to make sure that the
project plan and the price quotes are accurate.
Back
when the first Boeing 747 was sold, there was a story in the paper that said
Boeing wasn't sure whether they made money on the first plane. This doesn't surprise me - imagine getting
the pricing right on a million parts and calculating the labor of hundreds of
workers putting together the airplane.
Over
the years, I have talked to many large companies that follow some kind of
informal bid process, but I haven't spoken with one that has used BPM software
to manage that process. Using BPM
software to manage this process seems like the right solution and just one
error could pay for it.
Your Thoughts...
How
are you managing your bid process?
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