Complete control from signalling to a data-driven tender reply process. That is what Daan was looking for in bid management software. What they got in addition to that, is an overview of their entire market, AI implementations and a user-friendly registration process.
Daan connects job seekers to vacancies in education, healthcare, social domain, spatial domain, housing associations, communication and policy & management.
The challenge: the limitations of TenderNed
Due to the limitations of Tenderned (the Dutch government’s procurement website), Daan did not have a clear process.
With an ever-growing tender market, bid management is becoming increasingly important. That is what prompted Daan to look for the best way of bid management for the future. The team first used TenderNed and Excel, but the many manual entries were a time-consuming job. Moreover, it often felt as if the overview of all current and previous registrations had been lost.
“Altura has a great corporate philosophy: If you don't move, if you don't innovate, you go backwards. If you know: This is the platform, but it will continue to innovate. You want to take advantage of that, regardless of what is already there. That future perspective was an important reason for choosing Altura.” - Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager.
The solution: Altura for more overview, efficiency and continuous improvement
Daan immediately wanted to professionalise and standardise its bid management.
The reasons why they chose Altura:
- As a statement of professional intent towards its bid team
- Everything related to bids and tenders on one platform
- Confidence in Altura's growth and vision for the future
- Work faster on registrations through automation
- Automatic data dashboards and insights
- The most user-friendly option
Customised signalling, project and research environments
The success was already present in their win rate. Daan was concerned with the next step: “What is very important in tenders is steering ahead of the curve. The moments when you can influence the outcome. That you are there. That doesn't work with Excel lists or reminders.” Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager.
Due to the ease of use of Altura, they switched from their old working method to the new bid management software in no time.
“We were particularly pleased with the customization in the design of our environment. This allows you to fully tailor dashboards to your wishes. It's nice to be able to let that go. Everything adjusts automatically and you no longer have to work manually in Excel.” Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager.
Results: Altura professionalised Daan's tender process
Daan is now successful with their new bid management method. The results they achieve with daily use of Altura:
- No tender has been missed since the start and through the use of Altura.
- Search time for documents or data about tenders or contracting services and projects has been reduced from up to 15 minutes to 1 or 2 minutes maximum.
- Every task and project is fully traceable.
- Clear internal communication about why a bid was not submitted, for example for the board, through a structured logbook of Bid/No-Bids.
- From confusedly checking multiple platforms for new tenders to just checking Altura.
- Desk research has changed from scouring the internet to navigating through competitor and customer profiles in Altura. There they see who works where and how they can best get involved.
- Performance dashboards built with hard data from award decisions and previous proposals.
Complete control over your bids and insight into the rest of the market
Daan's feeling is clear; they now have complete control over the tender from signalling to registration. That is refreshing because missing a tender is always the biggest fear. That is why they are very satisfied with Altura: “It has never happened that we have missed a tender with Altura” Rogier de Lange, bid manager.
Daan then makes a clear distinction between signalling, evaluation, verification and project phase. The platform helps to check all steps, with automated planning per project and a central environment for all stakeholders.
Communication between management, departments and branches is how you create support for your bid
For Daan, the detailed reports from the Analysis module have become indispensable. KPIs such as the success rate per sector are very interesting. Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager emphasises this once again:
“We know everything by feeling, but as a bid management leader, I want to get a substantiated report from the system that shows hard data. That is why we chose Altura.” Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager.
The software also provides insight into areas for improvement. Daan uses this data to conduct discussions about current projects and to identify growth and risks.
In addition, the bid management team makes results transparent to other branches in Altura. By showing the impact of decisions and success, confidence in the value of tenders grows. This creates more support for the implementation and investments in bid management.
Altura saves Daan frustration and time
Altura saves time and frustration for the bid management team. Rogier de Lange, bid manager at Daan, sums it up in one sentence:
“File or project searches have changed from 15 minutes to 1 or 2 minutes.” Rogier de Lange, Bid Manager.
The most important thing for him is the ease of use of Altura and how clear the software is, so that he can work much faster.
In addition, Daan is enthusiastic about Altura’s ProposalSearch and other AI implementations.
Altura not only saves on manual tasks related to planning and signalling. With the ProposalSearch they have created their bid content library. They now quickly search for high-scoring texts and information from old proposals with just a few clicks. No longer having to search in folders, Excel sheets or emails saves them an average of 5 hours per week.
Daan's professionalisation with Altura
Daan was looking for a way to work more professionally in bid management because tenders are becoming increasingly important. Not only to make the process future-proof but also to attract more talent by showing professional intent in the way they approach their bid management.
That worked. Thanks to a tailor-made signalling environment, there is no tender that Daan doesn’t spot. With the data from the platform, they know exactly where both customers and competitors do business. The project management is error-proof because a clear overview is maintained from start to registration.
As icing on the cake, the Analysis module enables Daan to quickly share reports on all KPIs of bid management with all colleagues. This directly helps create more support for further professionalising their bid management.
“We use the bid/no-bid, among other things, to do analysis. If, after six months, the question arises: why have we not registered? Now I won't have to individually grab each Excel list. I can immediately create a dashboard and see the reasons why we did not register.”
Lynn Schepers, Bid Team Manager
