27 December, 2007

Strategy of Successful Tender

When come to the stage that call for tender interview, this is the utmost important occassion to clinch the project. This is a final round of competition amongst few of the finalists. Other than those common points like, company profile, job folio, financial balance sheet, technical knowledges , capacity of company, etc, are to be compare, you must have a set of strategy to tackle the interviewer to buy your idea.

First step in the begin of interview, you must able to identify your "friend" amongst (maybe) a group of interviewer. "Who is your Friend?", this is very subjective and solely rely on how the first impression of those individuals give you. Or it can be justified through the way they talked or questioned.

After the meeting, you shall collect more information about your "friend". Understand his/her charateristic will give you a better hand to handle him. Then, move on to be his/her friend, it is either invite a dinner and clearly spell out your intention is to be made Friend only. Sometimes, invitation must be rejected or he may decline by give thousand of excuses. This is a key point that you must try on of multiple methods, either begging or etc.. to make him be your friend is a must before move on to next step.

When he agree and accept your invitation, that means you are at a very high chances to obtain some information regarding to the tender or your competitor. Therefore, you shall immediately show your intention of willingness to revise the price or rate accordingly, provided you are so desperate for the job.

Other option, it is to know who is the shortlisted tenderer and follow up to negotiate with them and convince them to withdraw from the price war instead of slashing of the profit margin. No doubt, plenty of homework needs to be done prior to this stage. The basic is to make a comparison of price to market. Understand your strength and weakness in pricing.

Cannot deny that you may still fail the mission at the end of this tender, but keep a good relationship to all and develop your networking through this point. Well present yourself with a highly interpersonal skills to impress them and advertise your company at the same time.

Always make people buy your idea and make him feel comfortable to choose you and stress more on your strength. In all occasions, you must know who is the final decision maker and impress this KEY person rather than wasting unneccessary time on wrong target.

At last but not least, always be well prepared to enhance personal strength and understand your strength and weakness to strike at the right time, then the success will not be far from you.