More about pursuing bids ... Spiders!

The 2 x 2 matrix (previous post) is a good tool for measuring your competitive position for a bid. With only 2 factors to work, yo have to be a bit ruthless in determining the key factors.  But there may be times when you want a richer picture of your competitive position to be able to judge whether the bid is right for you.

A very useful tool here is the Spider Chart (a.k.a. radar chart), which has been very instructive in some of my recent work.  The example in the chart below applies to a fictitious IT services provider.  (It has 8 axes, but you can tailor as required.)  The idea is that you choose the scaling consistently, so that 'good' makes the web as large as possible on all the axes.  (For consistency across different prospects it's a good move to create a table of the scaling criteria for the axes.)

In this example let us imagine you are a large corporation which provides enterprise solutions to other large corporations or public bodies.  You are likely to provide most aspects of an IT service in-house, deal with the most demanding network, security and service needs.  Your reputation is an important reassurance for your blue-chip customers.  What you don't do in-house, you are well used to buying and controlling through your supply chain management functions.

If the target client is currently doing its thing in-house, it is unlikely to have kept abreast with latest tools and methodologies, and also be running a pot-pourri of legacy systems.  In such a case scope for bringing savings may be considerable.  You have technological/capability mastery of the whole business domain/space, so are a one-stop shop.  This increases customer trust in your credibility.

The 'Ansoff Position' needs a bit of explanation:  ECES means Existing Customer Existing Solution, NCNS means New Customer New Solution, etc.  The idea is that if you can sell an off-the-shelf (existing) solution to an existing customer, you have a strong incumbency relationship already and your and the customers processes are well aligned.  It's a pain for them to switch!  If you're at the opposite end of the spectrum (NCNS) they don't know you and are having to buy something new which they aren't familiar with.  It's a much more level playing field against the competition.

So how did the technique work in practice???  In one real example where the "web" was small we competed against a number of low-cost competitors in a fairly 'commoditised' market space.  We had to work hard to differentiate ourselves and communicate our benefits to the client.  Much in line with what the tool 'predicts'! In another case, where the web was larger, we played to our strengths and there were fewer competitors.  Compared to the previous case, the competition were quite similar companies to ourselves.  We could use the tool to either 'think how to ghost' the competition (counter what they say about their relative strengths) or emphasise the strength of our approach.