With many Bid Teams still reliant on generic business tools to complete their bid activities, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems a bit of a dream! Or is it?
In this second part of our AI series, we explore how Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies are already being harnessed within TenderEyes Bid Management software. We discuss how these new features are helping transform the bid process, bringing new working efficiencies and saving valuable time.
TenderEyes Bid Accelerator Tool
Our Bid Accelerator tool currently works with TenderEyes Project Workspace and Knowledge Bank Modules. Incorporating Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies it addressing the following challenges within Bid Management.
“Some of the easiest ways to leverage AI is by implementing enterprise software with AI (59%)” Deloitte.
Cross App Integration
As previously mentioned, some businesses are still using disparate business tools to undertake their bidding activities. This may include email, word processing, spreadsheets, simple project management apps and CRM. The lack of integration between these tools, can impact working capabilities. This includes the need for multiple logins, jumping between applications and having to duplicate data input and tasks.
This can make it difficult to easily track critical activities and communications, causing unnecessary delays and wasting valuable time.
This will increase the risks of rushed, inaccurate or out of date tender responses being used by Bid Teams in tender submissions. Opening the business up to potential reputation and financial risks as well as lower win probabilities.
TenderEyes Project Workspace and Knowledge Bank Modules integrate seamlessly with Microsoft 365 apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. You can view, and access data and information held within TenderEyes directly within your Microsoft Apps using the Microsoft Task Pane, as well as undertake tasks and activities as below.
Faster Project Set Up with AI
With such tight deadlines, any delays in project mobilisation can significantly impact timelines. There is a lot to organise! This includes securing the bid team, collaborators and approvers as well as sending out meeting invitations and information requests.
Another critical element is assessing and understanding Procurement Agency documentation – the questions, evaluation and scoring criteria. Identifying areas of opportunity and risk and sharing with the whole project team is essential.
Project mobilisation is much harder without tools that help automate the process of review, content generation and task setting.
TenderEyes Bid Accelerator and AI allow for these activities to take place within the Microsoft documents themselves. It’s as simple as highlighting the required information in the Word or Excel document and with one ‘SwiftClick’ auto-populating TenderEyes. This includes:
- Allocating and notifying project members of new Tasks ‘on the go’.
- Creating Key Facts within your Project Workspace.
- Adding tender questions to Project Workspace or Knowledge Bank for further action.
Improved Collaboration with AI
Collaboration between your Bid Teams and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) is crucial to developing high scoring tender responses. But with contributors having their own job responsibilities and sitting within other teams, division and locations, this is a big challenge.
Communicating with contributors early and throughout the whole process will be vital to build engagement and team accountability.
SMEs will also need easy access to information such Key Facts, risks, evaluation and scoring criteria, to ensure they have full context of tender questions. Without this, they may struggle to supply in-depth quality responses or key information.
Team working can be made even harder without a central content resource and ability to set tasks, check progress, secure feedback and improve responses all within one dedicated platform.
TenderEyes provides this environment, with added work efficiencies delivered through the Bid Accelerator. This includes:
- Saving tender related email communications directly into the related TenderEyes Project with one ‘SwiftClick’.
- Searching the TenderEyes Knowledge Bank and adding approved documents and images directly to emails.
- Creating information requests and reminders directly from Procurement Agency documents with one ‘SwiftClick’.
Intelligent Search & Return with AI
Many hours can be wasted searching for and securing the right information for tenders. Especially when content is stored within data silos, across teams, divisions and geographies.
Even when such information is stored within a central database or Bid Library, there is still vast amounts of information to search to find the relevant content. Simple search functions may still return a long list of information or documents that then need manually filtering.
This is where AI and machine learning can really help. The TenderEyes Bid Accelerator uses this technology to deliver sophisticated cognitive search. It can understand and process natural language queries as well as handle synonyms, typos, and linguistic variations.
This not only enhances the search experience for users but supports far more effective knowledge discovery and accurate search returns. Delivering relevant content that can be at once used.
Efficient Content & Response Generation with AI
Finally, compiling the finished tender submission is the most important stage of the bid journey. This requires time and focus to ensure quality responses are crafted and approved.
However, valuable time is often taken up with onerous repetitive ‘cut and paste’ activity – moving content from one document to another and involving multiple clicks or keystrokes. The time taken to do this soon mounts up when you have 100s of questions to answer! This can result in errors and incorrect information being included or valuable time wasted.
“Repetitive tasks are the number one challenge our customers wish to resolve when looking for Bid Management software.” TenderEyes Market Research 2022
The TenderEyes Bid Accelerator one ‘SwiftClick’ auto-insert, to and from TenderEyes and Microsoft 365 Apps, significantly speeds up this process.
This includes :
- Auto-populating approved documentation stored within your Knowledge Bank e.g., Insurances, Financial Accounts, either into your Tender Project Workspace or your tender submission.
- Auto-populating Standard Questions & Answers, images, and slides from Knowledge Bank into your Tender documents or spreadsheets.
- Directly access important Project Information such as project detail, Key Facts, Win Themes and scoring methodology, while working in your tender submission documents. This will help you find and understand the nuances of questions and provide more detailed, compelling, competitive responses.
Bid Accelerator Benefits
While early adopters are already reaping benefits from AI and ML technologies, many are still trying to come to terms with the barriers to adoption. These include costs, infrastructure, expertise, security and alignment to business strategies.
“Cost of Implementation (57%) and technical infrastructure (49%) are the top two barriers to AI/ML adoption.” Rackspace Technology 2023 AI & Machine Learning Research Report
Adopting an enterprise solution, such as TenderEyes, that already incorporates Ai enhancements, is a safer and cost-effective way to benefit from these smarter working practices.
The TenderEyes Bid Accelerator AI technologies and future advancements are designed to improve the efficiency of regular bid management activities, content management and use. Giving your Bid Team more time to finesse your tender responses, secure higher evaluation scores and improve win probabilities.
