Take a moment to think about your next winning project. How does the journey begin?
The first step is understanding where your organization holds the greatest potential and push on that when it’s time to bid on that project. Secondary is the actual bidding and then the managing and tracking of this bid, along with all of your other bids as well. You’ll manage all of these bids over a period of time and eventually winning somes jobs, and losing others.
But let’s back up. When you begin the bidding process, what do you do?
According to a survey conducted by Software Advice, 52% of respondents said they are still using pen and paper to “conduct estimating, takeoff, bid management, and other processes.” And a staggering 32% continue to use Excel spreadsheets to to complete and track their bids and proposals.
Why? That’s so old school. And if you fall into one of those buckets, here’s something you need to know: Using a bid tracking tool will make you a more efficient subcontractor. We have the case study to prove it, but here’s 5 specific reasons that you need bid tracking software.
Use Bid Tracking Software to Manage and Prioritize Bids
If you’re tracking bids on a spreadsheet, chances are you’re only tracking your own bids. Using technology gives you the opportunity to see bid invites across your office, not just the ones you’ve been invited to. Once you can track bids across your entire organization you can start to see the trends of which customers and which project types have the highest hit rates. Once you have visibility into all of that, you can prioritize the most urgent and set your teams in motion.
Predict Growth
Many times, when a client first comes to Thunderbolt Pipeline, they are not tracking project type success rates, or even over all hit rates. What are you without your data? Bid tracking software gives your organization the ability to track bids and trends overtime, making it easier for you to predict growth, bid on jobs with higher profit, and most importantly… win them. Thunderbolt Pipeline even offers these dashboards and reports in our standard offering.
Stay on Top of Your Competition
Chances are you’ve been beaten out on a bid too many times to count, but are you using this information to your advantage? Which competitor won the bid, and how much was the awarded bid for? If you are not asking that questions each time you lose, start today. You could track the answer in spreadsheets with manual data entry, however, bid tracking software, like Thunderbolt, can take the information you provide about your competitors and configure a calendar view for your team. You easily identify chunks of time where your competitor is working and the size of the job. This gives you a strategic advantage when you go to bid against that same competitor elsewhere. With this insight, you can feel confident about bidding more competitively so you’ll win the next one.
Easy Implementation
The statement “spreadsheets are inefficient” isn’t a groundbreaking realization. You know this, but you continue to use them anyway because it’s what’s familiar to you. Construction always tends to be behind the curve when it comes to technology because of how comfortable everyone has become with the current processes. But changing it doesn’t have to be a burden; you just have to find software that everyone will want to adopt. Systems like Thunderbolt Pipeline are built to help the entire team. Estimators will enjoy the responsive platform that can be used anywhere, project managers will enjoy having all of the documentation from the start of the estimating process saved in one spot, and leadership will like the built in dashboards and reporting. The interface is so user friendly – shifting to a cloud platform like Thunderbolt is a win for the entire organization.
Increase Your Bottom Line
AKA win more profitable bids. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? By leveraging your previous learnings, you can be smarter about how you bid. Smarter + more efficient bids = higher profit.
Technology like Thunderbolt Pipeline can help you achieve exactly what you’re looking for in a bid tracking tool. The solution to your organization’s old habits is right around the corner.
So what are you waiting for?
