For TMCs and travel suppliers

    I built the system your bids went through.

    ETABID was the industry's first online sourcing platform. The world's ten largest travel management companies responded to corporate tenders through it, for buyers including Siemens, PwC, Morgan Stanley and Adidas.

    Why that matters

    I have read your competitors' bids. At scale.

    Not the ones you lost to. All of them, side by side, in the format the buyer read them in. That is an unusual place to have stood, and it means I have seen what separates a bid that wins from a bid that was perfectly competent and lost.

    I have also taught bid management, technology and programme design to buyers and to agency teams across five continents. I know what a buyer is scoring against, because I have sat in the room while they wrote the scoring.

    Where I help

    • Bid and RFP strategy — including whether to bid at all
    • Response review and writing
    • Proposition and service model development
    • Buyer-perspective review of propositions, pricing and collateral
    • Pitch and presentation preparation
    • Research and thought leadership
    • Marketing strategy and industry positioning

    The cost of bidding

    Not every bid is worth making

    5%
    of contract value.What suppliers spend winning it, in research my own company published.
    £500k
    on one global bid.Executive time and travel on the largest corporate tenders.
    10
    largest TMCs in the world.All of them responded to tenders through a system I built.

    Deciding not to bid is sometimes the most valuable advice available, and I am happy to give it.

    On independence

    One rule, and it is simple

    WEST10 also advises corporate buyers. Where supplier work could bear on a buyer engagement, I say so at the outset and let the client decide. I do not advise both sides of the same transaction.

    It has never cost me a piece of work worth having.

    Bid coming up? Let's talk about whether to run at it.

    Discuss a project