ISYS90045 Professional IS Consulting
Consulting Proposals and the
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Engagement Life Cycle
TheEngagement Lifecycle
Engagement Lifecycle
How is work won and performed in consultancies?
• Depends on the type of engagement
• A typical flow is:
Risk assessment and
internal inquiry
Winning the
Contractual
negotiation
Delivery and
management
Close-out and
Engagement Lifecycle
Risk assessment and
internal inquiry
• Are we allowed to do this work?
• What could happen if we take this work?
• Could we causeasignificant outage?
• Would our final report be given to anyone else?
• Is the client reputable?
• Do we have the right people?
Engagement Lifecycle
Winning the work
• Review the RFI,EOI, RFT,RFQ
• Determine client requirements
• Identify who your bid team is
• How do we do this work?
• Prepare the response
• Review, review, review and sharpen
• Prepare for questions, consultations.
Engagement Lifecycle
Contractual
negotiation
• Confirm budget
• Negotiate scope and legal clauses governing delivery.
• SignContract
Engagement Lifecycle
Delivery and project
management
• Performing the work
• Kick-off meeting
• Ongoing project management (timeline and
task completion, budget).
• Deploy Methodology
Engagement Lifecycle
Close-out andQA
• Review of outcomes with leaders
• Can include an internal legal review of
deliverables.
• Final Presentation
• Steering Committee
• Final iterations
Whydo consultants exist?
Personal Reflection:
A bit of a recap –and setting the tone for today:
• Why do executives and organisations hire consultants?
• What are they looking for from this experience?
• What is a proposal?
• Written offers from apotential seller to aclient
• Contains (amongst other things):
• A summary of services to offer
• Expression of the business problem to be solved
• Canbe in any format
• Proposal writing can be a full time job!
• Experts on engagement methodology
• Deep technical and industry specialisations
• Knowledge of the salesprocess.
Before you bid
Typically require a few things to happen first:
• Is there risk in taking this work on?
• How will we mitigate these risks?
• Enter the sale into your CRM(visibility over pipeline)
• Inform your internal lead partner (if there is one)
• Who will be your team?
Canwe win the bid?
• Proposal effort takes significant effort
• Even bids for smaller engagements can take days to prepare
• This is hard if you’re also doing your full-time job!
Canyouwin the bid?
Ultimately, will this be worth our time and investment?
? Do we know the client?
? What do we know about their organisation?
? Did we know about the job before the RFPcame out?
? What is the work ‘really’ about?
? Is there potentially more risk than reward?
Someconsulting organisationswill not bid if they don’t havea
relationshipwith the client.
Youwork for IcarusConsulting, a mid-tier firm specialising
in IT project services, including project management,
business analysis, design and testing and release services.
Youdon’t have developers to build products, but you have
several trusted companies you sub-contract to.
As aDirector, you are already busy managing several
accounts –however, on a rare day in the office, a partner
taps you on the shoulder, late on a Monday afternoon, to
ask for your help…
To illustrate the process, we will step through a casestudy.
Shouldwe bid?
Discussionexercise in groups:
Scenario 1
Youhave been invited to bid to provide testing services
to help the implementation of a core banking system.
This is a key engine behind their internet banking
service. It is well-known in the press that this is so far a
wildly unsuccessful and expensive project that has been
running for years.
Youhave never worked at the client before, but there
would be a certain prestige for working with them.
Should you bid?
Proposals: Formal or informal
• When is a formal proposal required?
• In response to a formal request out to the market
• Often required for public sector
• When can an informal proposal result?
• Direct approach, via relationships with client
• If informal may be arranged through:
• Providing high-level material on budget, methodology
• Moving directly to an engagement letter/ contract
• Verbal agreement?
Types of proposals
• Proposal and sales materials can take on many forms
Type Description
Request for information (RFI) High-level request by a client to understand
what products and services are in the market.
Expression of interest (EOI) Used to test supplier interest (inviting
suppliers to submit future proposals).
Request for quote (RFQ) More focused on pricing and price-per-unit
(more for standardised or commoditised
services).
Request for tender (RFT) Formal request by a client for potential
suppliers to submit bids. Commonly used by
Government Agencies.
Request for proposal (RFP) Asper the RFT,but for private entities.
Knowyour audience
Like apresentation, know your audience for aproposal
Wewrite these for clients. Consider:
Who are they?
May impact language,
content, style, information
presented, industry
experience.
What do they want?
What is the client asking for?
What is the best way we can
solve this problem for them? What don’t they want?
Do we sell them something
they don’t want or need?
Shouldwe bid?
Discussion exercise:
Scenario 2
Youhave been overseeing testing services for a smallGovernment
Agency for three years.Your client – the CIO, – is akey
promoter of Icarus.You have been invited to bid to provide project
management and business analysis services.TheAgency has been
reliant on expensive contractors in this function that have not
integrated well with generally efficient internal project teams.The
contractors are being removed for the successful tenderer.This will be a
three-month engagement while Benny sources a full-time team.
Should you bid?
Bigwins come in stages
The first objective is to make the shortlist
• It is unlikely that adecision will be made by the client in one passof
the proposals
• There might be a lot of them!
• RFPs/RFTsrequire client analysis and shortlisting
If you make the shortlist, the real selling starts!
• Youare likely to be asked to make apresentation
If it is a very big contract then multiple submissions and
presentations will be required
If you are chosen, then the contract negotiations begin
Before you submit your proposal
• Ask to meet the client
• If you can walk the client through the major points of your
• Test their reactions
• Good indicators for your approach, budget, team, etc
• Some government organisations will only permit proposal
briefings to all bidders to avoid being accused of favouritism
• Likewise for responses to questions
• Canbe highly structured (e.g. dates for submission of questions).
Payattention to the details!
• Make sure you satisfy all essential criteria
• Ensure you include all requested sections including:
• Company details and address
• Insurance certificates
• Staff references
• Relevant qualifications and case studies
• Watch out for any price cap
• Youdo not want to be knocked out because you forgot to include some requested element
• Initial proposal evaluation will likely be done by functional staff asa ‘box ticking exercise’
• These knock out proposals that miss criteria.
What to include in your proposal
• The final decision makers will likely be senior
• They will refer your proposal to functional staff for evaluation of
technical aspects
“Should the proposal contain technical details?”
• Answer: It depends on the client
• Are they technically-focused or –minded?
• If the client is an engineering firm, defence, aircraft, or electricity
company then yes they will want lots of technical information.
Best salesmoment?
Discussion exercise:
What makes a ‘good sale’?Think about a time
where you were sold something – anything!Then
• What were you buying?
• What made you complete the transaction?
• Did you actually want it?
Structure of aproposal
• Avoid clutter
• A well structured proposal:
• Iseasy to read and navigate
• Assists the client in properly evaluating the proposal
• If you have detailed technical specifications then include them
asappendices
• Use diagrams and pictures to aid understanding of complex
Four Parts of a Consulting Proposal
Structure of aproposal
What goes into a good proposal?
Is there anything else?
summary Introduction
understanding
of your needs
Engagement
methodology
and timelines
Pricing and
assumptions Team CVs
Similar work
Structure of aproposal
• Covers main points of your proposal
• Isasummary: NOT an introduction
• Consider: an academic paper abstract.
Introduction
• Present the background and scope of the work
• Present the structure of the proposal
• Outline how you’re suited for this work
• Also a good opportunity to raise prior work
performed.
understandin
• A description of your interpretation of the request
• What does the client want?
• What is the real issue that you’re looking to solve
• Don’t just restate their text from the RFT/RFP!
Engagement
methodology
and timelines
• What is your special recipe for doing this work?
• What is the actual process for doing this work?
• How will you present it?
• Funky , milestones, icons?
• Project governance structures
Structure of aproposal
Pricing and
assumptions
• What is your total price?
• Is there a budget the client has in mind?
• How much are you telling the client in your costing?
• Are there any discounts you can apply?
• What assumptions have you based this on (e.g. limits
on number of workshops, certain activities you’re not
doing, you’re only performing a high-level study,
• Who is going to be doing the work?
• Structure of the engagement team (roles,
responsibilities, job titles)
• Who is ‘actually’ going to be doing the work?
• Descriptions of what people’s expertise is, past
engagements, etc.
Structure of aproposal
• Tell stories so you can demonstrate your expertise in
• What are the big successstories for your
organisation in doing similar work?
• Who did you do it for, how did you do it?
• What were the benefits?
Similar work
Structure of aproposal
Proposals – summary
Pre-bid activities to consider risk and effort
Proposals asa key method for winning work
Proposal structure and purpose of each section
Next week:
• Client ecosystem
• Dealing with different personalities
References
Jordyn, Betsy (2018, May 22). 4 Parts of the Perfect Consulting Proposal.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ59JCMoi6I. Accessed 20
July, 2022.
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