What is proposal management?

Proposal management is all about making, sending, and keeping track of a sales proposal or bid in answer to a request for proposal (RFP). Making sure all the essential details are in a proposal and keeping track of any changes made during the review process takes some planning.

As part of proposal management, you should keep an eye out for responses from possible customers and keep in touch with them after the proposal has been sent.

Companies can handle proposals well throughout their entire lifecycle, which increases their chances of making deals.

Synonyms

• project management for proposals
• proposal management software
• sales proposal process

The Process of Managing Proposals

A “proposal management” project cycle is used to make and send a formal, thorough proposal to a possible client or customer.

The purpose of proposal management is to ensure everyone involved in the proposal process can get the knowledge and tools they need to finish.

How to Make a Proposal

The proposal process is made up of the following general steps:

• Request for Proposal (for companies that make money by responding to RFPs) or Sales Conversation with Prospective Buyer (for companies that deal directly with customers)
• Making plans for proposal development (making sure you have the right people, methods, and technology to write and keep track of proposals)
• Writing a proposal
• Sending the plan to possible customers

Taking care of the proposal process

To make a good proposal, proposal management needs strategy and tactical parts. Some critical parts are figuring out what the customer wants and needs, looking into similar solutions, and coming up with solutions that are just right for the customer.

The tactical parts include planning the proposal’s layout, gathering enough proof to back up any claims, making pricing models based on expected costs, and putting together supporting documents like price estimates, financial forecasts, and more.

Once an answer has been considered, proposal management ensures it follows all the legal rules for sending it in. This includes putting together contracts, buying papers, vendor or supplier certifications, and any regulatory paperwork needed.

Risk assessment methods are also used in proposal management so stakeholders know any possible risks with their proposed answer.

Along with these steps, proposal management often involves planning how to get more people to see the submitted proposal. As part of this, the company might set up pitch meetings with company leaders to show them what the business offers.

Proposal management is vital to a business’s ability to make complete proposals that properly show what it can do. You must ensure your plans are firm to win lucrative project bids or sales deals.

Management of Proposals What to Do Best

Companies that regularly reply to RFPs or sell goods or services must have good proposal management to succeed.

In a competitive bidding setting, a well-run proposal process can make it much more likely for a company to win. Best practices can help you handle proposals better and improve your chances of getting more bids or closing more deals.

Know What the Proposal Needs

The first thing you need to do to handle proposals well is to plan and know what sales proposals should include, like a list of the deliverables and the scope of the work. Setting a schedule for project tasks will also help proposal managers meet their due dates.

Process Streamlining

Organization and methods that work well are also crucial for managing proposals well.

Setting up a well-organized system that makes it simple to review and assign tasks will speed up the whole process for people who work on proposals and help companies avoid delays or missing deadlines.

Ensuring everyone on the team working on the proposal has access to the same information also helps everyone stay on track with their jobs.

Lastly, doing quality assurance checks throughout the process helps ensure the plan is correct so there are no problems after it has been sent in.

How to Communicate Well

Effective communication between people with a stake in the buying process is another essential part of proposal management.

At every step of the process, everyone should clearly know what is expected of them and when things need to be done. Online collaboration tools, like cloud document storage systems or video chat platforms, make it easy for people in the proposal department and others working on the project to get things done.

Use data from the proposal.

Finally, one more way to raise the number of accepted proposals is to use data analytics tools, like text mining or sentiment analysis, to learn more about what customers want by looking at past wins and losses.

This helps proposal teams make the necessary changes to the text before sending in a bid or proposal package. Also, getting customer feedback after sending proposals can help you figure out how to improve the process.

Following these steps can considerably raise a company’s win rate while making the sales and proposal development teams more effective and efficient.

Software for managing proposals

Software for managing proposals is made to make the process of making proposals easier. Businesses, schools, and other groups use proposal management software to make, keep track of, and handle proposals.

It helps them make the process of making proposals better and make sure that everyone involved is kept in the loop during the whole proposal life cycle. Software for managing proposals can also give you helpful information about how engaged customers are and how often they win.

Pros of Software for Managing Proposals

With features like template files, automated responses, drag-and-drop editors, spellcheckers, electronic signatures, analytics dashboards, and more, proposal management software helps businesses get their work done faster. It gives teams an easy way to work together on proposals in real-time and stores all project-related files and papers in one place.

Proposal management systems can also make the process automatic by sending alerts when due dates are approaching, or tasks are finished.

People who work with many proposals or projects with complicated needs can benefit from proposal management tools. By putting all of the data in one place in the software, teams can easily handle their data assets and get a better picture of how their processes are running, which cuts down on complexity and boosts efficiency. It also helps businesses better look at vast amounts of data, which helps them make decisions and reduces mistakes from entering data by hand.

Also, proposal management software can be used by people at different levels, such as salespeople who are keeping an eye on opportunities or leaders who are keeping an eye on the finances of multiple projects simultaneously.

Adding things in

Systems for managing proposals often connect to other systems to make them more useful. Most of the time, the following connections work:

ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, is a set of software tools that help companies organize and automate their work. ERP helps improve workflows and use resources by combining data from different areas. When ERP works with proposal management software, all the data needed for making and sending bids can be accessed from within the ERP system, which speeds up the process.

For instance, when a company needs to bid on a project, the sales team can use ERP to access financial records, customer information, and project-related documents. They can also access other documents connected to the project within the proposal management software.

This lets businesses quickly make complete bids that include specifics about the finances, the work to be done, when it needs to be done, any terms and conditions that apply, and other essential details.

CRM

CRM software is essential for businesses of all sizes because it helps them better handle their relationships with customers and makes those customers happier. Software for managing proposals makes it easier to make and send unique, high-quality proposals to each customer.

When used together, these two tools can make it easier to manage customer relationships and ensure that every plan is accepted.

The primary way that CRM software and project management software work together is by sharing data. Combining essential data from both systems can get a single source of truth about how customers connect with your business and their needs. Then, this information can be used to make proposals that better meet those goals.

Adding CRM and proposal management tools together also makes things run more smoothly. Businesses won’t have to enter or collect data by hand whenever they make a plan because the two systems will share information. Instead, they can find all the information they need in one place.

This higher efficiency level cuts costs and speeds up responses to customer questions, making businesses more competitive in their markets.

Lastly, companies can see how well their proposals turn prospects into customers by combining CRM and proposal management software.

This gives us helpful information about how customers react to various offers and how specific features or perks might make them more likely to buy.

Businesses can improve their processes and get the most out of their investments by focusing on more profitable opportunities and making proposals ideally suited to each prospect’s needs.

CPQ

CPQ (configure-price-quote) software is another essential system many businesses connect to proposal management systems. CPQ is an automated solution that makes it easier for businesses to control how their products are configured, how much they cost, and how they get quotes.

Companies can make it easier to react to customer requests and make price quotes for their proposals more quickly using CPQ technology and proposal management solutions.

When companies combine CPQ software with proposal management, they don’t have to do math by hand when responding to RFPs or quoting potential clients. This saves them time and effort in many ways.

This makes things more accurate, reduces mistakes, and saves businesses time when they must reply to requests and make sales quotes or bids.

As the name suggests, DealRoom is a type of proposal software that helps businesses handle their sales process by giving them all the tools, data, and technology they need to close deals. One of the best things about DealRoom is that it makes it easy for clients to accept quotes, review contracts, and place orders.

Businesses can better handle the proposal process from start to finish when they combine digital sales room software with proposal management software. Businesses can also track how well their bids are doing by connecting the two platforms.

Businesses can find out how long a client can accept a plan, how often it has been reviewed, and how many changes need to be made before it is signed off.

Based on this data, revenue managers can change how the company makes sales and deals with customers in the future.