The Top 5 Mistake Bidders Make: No 3. How to stand out from the crowd? Differentiate

Times are hard at the moment – no one is denying it.  The construction industry is incredibly competitive, with companies who wouldn't normally operate in certain markets invading the realms of the smaller suppliers.  To make matters worse the Comprehensive Spending Review challenged the public sector to slash their budgets, with targets in excess of a 20% reduction.  Unfortunately a lot of public sector organisations, rather than grasping the opportunity to work with their supply chain to streamline and increase efficiency, they have simply cut their budgets - expecting the same service for less.

The biggest complaint we hear about bidding at the moment, is that clients only want cheapest price and companies are prepared to ‘buy’ the work to retain turnover and keep going.    However if clients are only offered a group of companies who all basically do the same thing, offer the same service, provide the same quality i.e. average – then they can only differentiate on price.  Rather than seeing this as a problem, we believe it is a real opportunity. 

True product differentiation

You need to make sure that the service and products you offer are different (i.e. better) than the competition either through excellence or innovation.  This will give you a competitive advantage.  It is important the differences are something that your clients want or need, for example enhanced efficiency which allows a reduced build time without losing any quality. 

A new method, product or material – anything that drives improvement. 

It is important that your potential and existing clients can truly understand this difference – what it is that makes you stand out from the crowd you are up against.  Therefore you need to demonstrate and evidence this improvement in your bids as this will allow your client to score you more highly.

If you can demonstrate to your client that you go above and beyond what is required, provide exceptional service, innovate to improve, are able to demonstrate efficiencies and time/cost savings – then you are giving them something other than price on which to base their buying decision.  And with a bit of luck, they will buy you.