The financial and insurance industry is one that our team has focused on for the last five years. Our Director, Jason Cooney, held an in-house role at insurance broker Aon, as a bid and tender writer and has strong experience writing bids and tenders for the finance and insurance industries. In addition, one of our senior writers has in-house (as well as extensive consulting) experience writing bids and tenders for a range of funds management companies.
Our process to help you win finance and insurance bids and proposals
We take a tailored approach to helping you win your bid or tender. The first step in the process, is to identify where you require assistance. For example, some clients have in-house writing capabilities, and need assistance with strategy and response structure. Other clients have limited in-house writing capabilities, but are very strong on strategy and response structure. Alternatively, you may have a strong bid writing capability, but be too busy with constants bids to set up a comprehensive bid library or establish a robust bid/no bid process.
Either way, we will work with you to identify your weaknesses and outline how we can help.
Our experience servicing the finance and insurance sector
Financial and insurance tenders are a lucrative opportunity for any applicant and our are experts at turning our clients’ capabilities and experience in to new opportunities. We have helped finance and insurance companies respond to RFPs, RFTs, RFIs and EOIs including:
- Assisting a funds manager create an information memorandum for a wholesale property fund. The fund was focused on industrial property across Australia and was aimed at sophisticated investors. We added value by creating engaging graphics and writing the commentary on the general market as well as potential for each property.
- Writing a multinational bid for a large insurance broker. This was a complex bid for a multinational client with operations across the three continents. The insurance broker needed a consultant to lead the bid and coordinate the different bid teams in each country. There were sensitive political issues to manage at the broker and they engaged us to have strong independent leadership. We project managed the bid from start to finish and provided clarity on key issues.
- We assisted an insurance broker with their appointment as exclusive broker to a large ASX listed company. This was a highly competitive tender response with three of the largest brokers bidding for the work. By going into detail about our clients claims process and providing evidence of efficiency in claims processing we were able to achieve success for our client.
- We assisted ANZ bank with writing a proposal for banking services to a government client. This was a highly competitive bid with substantial potential fees and a long term contract at stake. We assisted with the development of graphics and infographics as well as supporting documentation required to tender to government.
- We assisted an investment back with a proposal to a government department for the provision of investment banking advice. Our support involved writing, development of win themes and development of graphics. We also brainstormed and project managed the response from start to finish.
We understand the terminology and win themes that need to be incorporated in order to draft successful financial and insurance tenders. We also quickly and effectively communicate with financial services professionals in a professional manner. For investment banks that are working on proposals and information memorandums, we work closely with all stakeholders to deliver the proposal to a high quality. This includes legal teams – who we are able to work closely with to ensure what we write complies with any regulatory requirements.
Strategies to help you win finance and insurance tenders and contracts
Graphics and Visual Design
While documents are expected to be written in black font on a white background, the use of themes and visual styles for both fonts, margins and backgrounds should not go too astray. We at The Tender Team understand that while it’s truly the content of a tender or bid response that matters, graphics and visual designs should not be ignored in financial and insurance tenders.
In these cases, it is apt to think about the procurer who must go through tens to hundreds of pages of the same pre-formatted responses that they would have originally designed or had a hand in creating. However, we formulate our responses with a level of graphical flair as required by our clients. We personally believe that moderate use of colour in headers/footers and appropriate infographics distinguish our submission visually from the competition. There is a level however of using graphics and other visual features appropriately, not crossing the line into turning a standard tender response into an artistic statement.
At The Tender Team, we understand this level of appropriateness all too well through our past experiences and ensure that clients are always pleased with and satisfied that the visual design of their tender response enhances the content and does not overwhelm it.
Tailored Writing
Our team of tender writers and bid consultants understand that the procurer (and not our client) is oftentimes the most important person(s) to please. Tailored writing refers to how in close consultation with our client, we set about to structure and convey our responses in a way that applies specifically and directly to the procurer.
Each sentence and paragraph has one goal; convincing the procurer that our tender response is the best one above its competitors. Ultimately, we do our best when we individually tailor a response that is specifically suited not only for procurer as a whole but to the particular tender itself.
Nobody would wish to read obvious and evident uses of ‘copy and paste’ in a tender response from other non-related tender responses or worse yet, other sources than our own writers hands and minds.
Our clients (and the procurer) wish to see writing that is only meant for one particular tender, automatically making it ineligible for use elsewhere. Our group of writers tend to use an active voice for each response, including our use of ‘our’ in this very blog post. We strive to put forth our arguments for our clients’ capabilities, experience and general suitability not in a passive, formally removed voice but instead through inclusive language that deliberately assumes we have already won (or are near certain of doing so).
As in real life where confidence in one’s demeanor and approach is valued, so too is specifically tailored writing that sets out to portray our clients effectively and to relieve the procurers requirements simultaneously. The Tender Team formulate tender responses that walk a steady line between practical and memorable offers in our response while avoiding the use of embellishment or outright falsehoods. This is especially important in the case of financial and insurance tenders where blatant lies often lead to severe fines and possibly jail time.
With the constant use of tailored writing, our tender responses are highly effective in conveying to the procurer what needs to be said clearly and responsibly.
Formatting and Proof Reading
Badly written tender responses can not only become evident through the lack of detail in the content itself but also through poor formatting and also a lack of proofreading.
Formatting refers to paragraph structure, inconsistent spaces in between text and margin or food and header misuse in the document itself. A practical example of better formatting would be through the use of bullet points to summarise and present information in an easy to digest and clear manner as below;
- Paragraph structure
- Inconsistent spaces
- Margin and/or footer/header misuse
Bullet points and summarising information as a whole, especially for something as fact orientated as financial and insurance tenders, is a convenience for the procurer and will make them more amenable to our client’s offer.
Paragraph structure is also important as our writers at The Tender Team often have to break down blocks of unedited information into bite-sized paragraphs that are easy to read. Presentation of content in specifically broken down blocks is essential for the procurer to help process and review what is being said in any tender, let alone financial and insurances ones.
Inconsistent spaces between sections and text, in general, can also become a nuisance and distract the procurer when sections have not been confined properly to individual pages. This depends on the tender’s original template and whether or not the procurer set out each section properly.
Margin and footer/header inconsistencies can also distract from the bigger picture of the content itself. Our writers closely review for these inconsistencies and rectify them immediately.
Helping you win more contracts
Our bid, proposal and tender writing service extends across all of Australia and New Zealand including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Hobart and Canberra. We can can help you find and secure insurance broker tenders, insurance tenders and insurance bids. We also help with finance industry bids including investment banking services, asset management, insurance services and risk management services.
