Pursuing a bid makes sense if you have a strong competitive position. For a straight-forward equipment product his might be reasonably easy: Do you have the right features? Are you at a good price point? Does the product look good? Do you have the right marketing channels?
But how can you judge this when there are many complex factors? For Business-to-Business or Business-to-Government the 'complex factor's are very often many and varied. They could include your reputation, track record, willingness to take risk or make a or long-term commitment, your ability to manage large programmes, and so on.
Although it's often difficult because of the very narrow choice of factors, in this case two, a classic 2 x 2 matrix of factors can give fundamental insight into underlying factors that will reveal your relative competitive position. For example, the 2 most important factors for a large IT project for government or a large corporation could be Complexity and Size. Can you credibly, in this example, master the all of the technical complexities, or do you have some niche skills? If the project is very large, do you have the resources, additional manpower (when things go wrong) and credibility to deliver the implementation?
This doesn't mean you can't compete when (in this example) things aren't complex and large! Smaller companies may well have a lower cost base and generic skills to pursue simple, small projects more competitively than a large brand name. Large companies may choose not to compete here. The 2 x 2 matrix will help your positioning, whatever your size.
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