The era of offices is officially coming to a grand closure. We are on the brink of a new era. This is the brand-new era of online collaboration. With the descent of the Covid-19 crisis, the world has come to a shattering halt and huge organizations like TCS with over 400,000 employees is considering this to be a permanent solution for 75% of it’s teams until 2025 and possibly even after that. This is not just the case with TCS. Other organizations are also following suit.
This would obviously mean that teams across the organization, including the sales teams will need to find new means and ways to collaborate. Teams will not be interact face to face- the way they used to while working within the confines of an office.
While research shows that working from home actually improves productivity, there is no such research done specifically regarding sales teams. As sales teams and proposal management teams, we need a deliberate effort to improve the way we collaborate
Consider this. Sales teams have to work at light speed to deliver proposals. Writing business proposals effectively can only be done through effective and efficient proposal collaboration. The proposal manager in the sales teams need to be delegate, increase productivity, track, report, and manage the whole process while writing business proposals. All of those are individual behemoths.
That being said, heere are four ways we recommend to boost your sales team’s proposal collaboration.
Help your team know what collaboration is- and what it is not
Communication is chatter and talking that is disparate. It is interaction and must not be confused with collaboration. There is a lot of noise in communication. Collaboration is on the other hand is focused, aligned, and aimed at a target like an Olympian would aim at a bull’s eye. Ensuring a common channel for collaboration will ensure trust in the team, and eliminate any chances of miscommunication. This lays a groundwork for you to establish that your organization is bidding to win- and not just bidding to submit.
Let everyone know how important it is
It is crucial that the entire sales team understands the implications of poor proposal collaboration while writing business proposals and Gone are the days when a team would sit inside the confines of a room. A Salesforce research found that ineffective collaboration was the cause that 86% of employees cited for workplace failures. Let the sales team know beforehand that the lack of poor proposal collaboration may negatively impact the end result. Let them also know that their everyone’s contributions are equally vital and that brainstorming on a singular platform is crucial.
Let the team understand scope and timebound goals
Often, while writing business proposals and collaborating about it, contributors tend to go off-topic in the channel. It is important that everyone in the proposal team understands the clear purpose of the proposal collaboration very clearly. The team must always be aware of deadlines and current progress so that they can focus on accelerating it.
Start using the right set of arsenal
You cannot use a sickle when the task demands an axe. Proposal collaboration demands proposal collaboration software that aids in writing business proposals. Even if it means that the tool saves 10% more of your time over traditional collaboration tools, it is worth using the most relevant tool. It is crucial that you get the senior management’s buy-in and procure appropriate proposal collaboration tools that will help you when it comes to deadlines.
It would also help if the tool can provide you with an integrated mechanism to perform other tasks related to proposals- such as content management, RFP shredding, compliance matrix management, approval workflows, etc. This would make it more complete. Instead of you having to procure multiple softwares and working on APIs to integrate them (which can take years)- it would be good if this can come as a package.
Conclusion
Like we discussed above, the issues that plague a proposal manager during while writing the business proposals are many. It would be empirically and verifiably improvable if an organization can optimize and improve upon proposal collaboration using the right set of tools. But in the end, an organization’s culture also plays a huge role. We recommend that your team develop a synergetic and symbiotic culture that respects processes and stays anchored to it during the entire practice of writing business proposals.
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