Committed to developing tendering capability
About Doval Constructions
Doval Constructions (Doval) delivers a range of civil infrastructure services, specialising in complex, medium-sized projects. Operating in South East Queensland, primarily in the Brisbane Metropolitan Region, Doval contracts to local, state and federal governments.
National prequalification submission
Doval needed to prepare an important national prequalification submission to the QLD Department of Transport and Main Roads (DTMR). While the business maintained an internal bidding function, its proposal manager was on maternity leave. Simply due to timing, this meant Doval had no immediate or experienced person available to complete the proposal.
Doval needed a solution quickly, or risk submitting an unsatisfactory prequalification submission. After learning that outsourced professional proposal services were an option, Doval engaged BidWrite for support with its DTMR prequalification submission.
Budget constraints necessitate a value for money approach
As a medium-sized business, Doval was understandably conscious about overall cost and return on investment. Also, given that it already had in-house tendering capability, Doval was wary about becoming overly reliant on external support.
With budget concerns front of mind, BidWrite provided clear information on how their consultants could provide the most value, thereby optimising Doval’s return on investment.
Doval opted for an initial engagement which saw BidWrite reviewing a draft of the prequalification submission. However, once Doval saw the value that BidWrite consultants could offer, the engagement quickly expanded to cover a much greater scope.
Reviewing to close gaps and identify opportunities for improvement
BidWrite’s proposal specialists adopted a structured process to critically analyse Doval’s draft prequalification submission to identify gaps and provide advice on how to make the proposal more compliant and compelling.
The analysis identified a range of aspects that Doval already did well, particularly their visual presentation, which was generally superior than competitors.
However, BidWrite also identified opportunities for improvement, ranging from the need to provide better evidence of specific, relevant project experience, to better articulating their organisational capability to deliver the work.
BidWrite also noted that Doval had ‘padded’ their submission with material not immediately relevant to the client, at the expense of omitting specific details that were of relevance to the client.
Eager to learn as much as possible, Doval’s team were very receptive to BidWrite’s recommendations and with their assistance, was successful with their national prequalification submission to the DTMR.
Successful prequalification leads to ongoing success and mentorship
Following the initial DTMR engagement, Doval has continued to engage BidWrite’s services for support on more than a dozen prequalification submissions, EOIs, RFPs and RFTs, in which they have achieved a win rate of over 90%.
Doval’s positive commitment to improvement has resulted in a strong practical relationship with BidWrite now occupying more of a mentorship role, transferring knowledge to ensure the Doval team is more skilled in preparing their own submissions. They now have a number of skilled in-house tendering staff, an expanding bid library of quality tendering collateral, and importantly, a better understanding of how to produce persuasive tenders that win.
Their tendering capability has developed to a point where the team no longer needs help on their smaller tenders, but still call on BidWrite to provide advice and support for their strategically important, ‘must win’ tenders.
This progress is best summarised by Ben Dyson, Director of Doval Constructions, commenting:
“Not only has BidWrite been instrumental in our winning of numerous tenders, they have also made our tendering process much more efficient and professional. The strong personal relationships I have forged with several of the BidWrite team continue to make an otherwise tedious and mundane bid process something filled with humour and enjoyment. They help us win work and they make our tenders more attractive to potential clients. This has led to us being more successful to winning EOIs and getting onto panels, which is very good for our company.”
“Overall, their involvement has enhanced our possibilities of winning projects. They’ve clearly got inhouse expertise in persuasive writing and their presentation is excellent. Nothing is ever too much effort and they’ve got a great work ethic.”
