Bidfood, one of the largest suppliers in the foodservice industry, manages 30 to 40 tenders annually for National Accounts & Health & Care*. These processes are critical to their success, with an average win rate of 40-50%. However, Kasper van Donkersgoed, Senior Proposal Manager, and Femke Uelderink, Proposal Manager, faced several challenges: streamlining pre-tender processes and tackling inefficient product matching.
Since implementing Altura, Bidfood has made significant strides in addressing these challenges and laid a solid foundation for further growth. “You sometimes just have to try new things, and I really wanted to do something with AI,” Kasper shares with a smile.
The challenge: gaining efficiency in a complex environment
One of Bidfood’s biggest challenges was product matching—the process of aligning client requests, such as “sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil,” with their own inventory. Kasper explains, “Our offerings differ from those of our competitors, yet we need to match them to client requirements. It was always a manual, error-prone, and time-consuming process.”
The scope of the problem becomes clear when looking at the numbers: each tender involves matching between 100 and 3,000 items. Manually, an employee can only process about 30 items per hour, meaning a single tender could take an entire workweek.
Pre-Tender Challenges and the Search for a Solution
In addition to time-intensive product matching, Kasper and his team faced other obstacles:
- Dispersed Data: Documents and information were scattered across multiple files, leading to inefficiencies.
- Pre-Tender Complexity: Clients often request customised solutions, but the lack of a streamlined process made it difficult to prepare efficiently. "You want to give clients exactly what they need, but it becomes challenging when data and processes aren’t well-organised," Kasper explains.
Knowing that manual processes were no longer sustainable, Kasper sought a solution that went beyond simple digitisation. He wanted an AI-driven tool to accelerate and streamline bid management processes, such as product matching and tender qualification. This search led him to Altura. “I was looking for technology that could not only save time but also minimise errors and help us assess opportunities more effectively,” he says.
The solution: a unified platform for structure and convenience
Bidfood chose Altura for its ability to streamline documentation, product matching, and collaboration. The platform offers a comprehensive ecosystem to support the entire tendering process.
"Our processes used to be spread across different documents. Now Altura centralises everything, from pre-tender with the New Business team to evaluation. This provides not only structure but also convenience," - Kasper, Sr. proposalmanager, Bidfood
A process built on efficiency and data
Altura’s pre-tender board gives Bidfood a centralised space for all activities, enabling a structured approach and better collaboration between New Business and Proposal teams. Evaluation discussions allow insights from past bids to be reused, increasing the chances of success in new tenders.
By using tools such as the Proposal Search and the Document Chat, the team can quickly retrieve and share information, saving time and ensuring consistent quality across all proposals.
Step 1: Identifying and qualifying opportunities
The New Business team identifies a new tender opportunity and creates a project in Altura. They fill out the pre-tender qualification model to assess what is already known and what information is still missing. This process provides initial insights into the feasibility and strategic value of the opportunity.
“Implementing Altura was straightforward, and with excellent guidance, we were quickly able to work independently,” - Kasper, Sr. proposalmanager, Bidfood
Step 2: Task assignment and collaboration
After the initial qualification, the opportunity is handed over to the proposal team, which performs a more detailed qualification. They use the Document Chat to extract specific information from tender documents quickly.
Once all preparatory information is complete, the team begins drafting the proposal, leveraging tools like the Proposal Search to find relevant content from past tenders. Recently, the team has also started experimenting with the Proposal Writer, a new tool that helps create proposals more efficiently.
Step 3: Finance and product matching
The finance team plays a key role in this phase, using Altura’s Product Matcher to align client requests with Bidfood’s product inventory.
- Automation: The Product Matcher can identify and match items within seconds.
- Manual input: For unmatched items, manual processing takes about one minute per item.
- Time savings: Tasks that previously took days can now be completed in hours, particularly for tenders involving 100 to 3,000 items.
This automation significantly reduces errors and ensures accurate product matching.
Step 4: Proposal and Evaluation
The proposal team finalises the bid and marks the project as complete. Evaluation feedback is then added in Altura, allowing valuable lessons to be reused for future tenders. This structured evaluation process ensures that knowledge is consistently applied.
Altura’s key features for Bidfood
1. Centralised document storage:
Kasper comments, "Altura gives us one place for all documents, making our workflow much easier,"
2. Qualification models:
The pre-tender and opportunity qualification model provides Bidfood with structured insights into risks and opportunities. Altura’s customer success team helped design the template. With Altura, Bidfood has implemented a two-step qualification model. All qualification information is directly linked to the appropriate tender and project, eliminating the need to search for it.
3. AI-driven product matching:
Thanks to Altura’s advanced tools, the Finance team can now match client requests with Bidfood’s product inventory more quickly and accurately, saving both time and reducing errors. "The tool can match more than 50 products in a second, which previously took at least two minutes per product to process manually. For tenders involving 100 to 3,000 items, this saves the team several days of work."
4. Document Chat:
With this tool, the team can instantly retrieve relevant information from tender documents during the process. "Previously, I had to spend a lot of time searching through and reading tender documents. Now, the chatbot finds the specific information I need," Femke says. "With the Document Chat, I can search for what I need and get an answer within seconds. It makes our daily work simpler and faster."
5. Proposal Search:
The Proposal Search serves as Bidfood’s complete content library within Altura, where previous proposals and relevant documents are neatly organised. The team can easily reuse the right content in new proposals. "It’s great that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time," Femke adds. "Altura offers features that help me in my daily work. Where we used to start from scratch every time, the Proposal Search now gives us access to a complete library of past proposals. Finding and reusing content saves a lot of time."
The first results: structure and efficiency
Bidfood has already made significant progress toward a more streamlined and efficient tendering process with Altura. Kasper shares: “All our projects are now in one place, from pre-tender to evaluation, providing more structure than ever before,”
The benefits Altura offers so far:
- Improved oversight: Altura centralises all processes, from pre-tender and qualification to evaluation, giving Bidfood a complete view of each tender and all ongoing opportunities.
- Pre-tender phase: The entire pre-tender phase is now structured within Altura, with standardised steps and a qualification model in place.
- Efficiency in product matching: Thanks to the Product Matcher, the team saves significant time matching client requests to their inventory, a previously labor-intensive process now streamlined through automation.
- Strategic decision-making: The integrated qualification model helps Bidfood better assess opportunities and make well-informed decisions.
- Ease of use: Tools like the Proposal Search and the Document Chat simplify daily tasks, enabling the team to focus on creating high-quality proposals.
Kasper sees further opportunities to maximise Altura’s potential: "Our goal is to work even more closely with the New Business team to get the most out of Altura. The system is now fully set up to support us, and I’m excited about the results we can achieve together."
With Altura, Bidfood has established a solid foundation to centralise all bid management processes, increasing both convenience and efficiency.
*Different figures apply for European tenders.
