Using Data to Qualify Your Leads

When it comes to tenders, you’re doing it all: attending site briefings, going through buyer’s requirements, submitting necessary documents and proposals … but you’re still not winning.

Tendering is not just about going through the motion of submitting quotations; it’s more than that. With thousands of companies in Singapore, chances are that plenty of buyers are looking for your goods and services, so once you capture all these opportunities, it’s imperative that you participate in the ones that put you in a competitive advantage (or at least in a position where you’re not at a disadvantage).

Gaining a competitive edge may not be easy, but with technology available today, you can use data to understand the buyer and beat the competition.

1. Using data to predict cycles

Most buyer purchases are repeated, and they come in cycles. Maintenance works are an example of predictable purchases because they are term contracts and repeated annually or biennially, but plenty of commodity and services type deals also go through cycles.

Reviewing past tenders of buyers and its cycle over 2 or more years gives you a better idea of when buyers require your goods and services. While it’s not indicative of future purchases, it could be a good gauge of when they would require to purchase again.

E.g. If Buyer A released a tender for IT cybersecurity software in April 2016 calling for a 2 year license with installation and maintenance, and they awarded the deal in May of the same year, it would then be highly possible that Buyer A would be looking to renew their license or upgrade their security software by April 2018. So, even if you missed the deal in 2016 or lost the tender to a competitor, anticipate that you’ll have another chance in 2018.

2. Using data to gauge your competitive advantage

We’ve all seen deals we were confident we would win, but then we don’t and don’t know why.

While utilizing the right pricing strategy is extremely important, we know it’s not the only consideration buyers have. Apart from pricing. Consider your competitive edge amongst participants: when you know which of your competitors are participating and what their strengths are, you’ll know if you stand a chance.

First, find out who’s participating during site briefings. As some site briefings are mandatory, you would know who will be submitting proposals just by being present.

Next, is there an incumbent? If the buyer’s current supplier is also participating, they may have a competitive edge, or the tender is prime for new suppliers (like you!) to win over this customer. Some buyers publish awarded details once the deal closes, so having this information at hand informs you 1. If there is an incumbent, and 2. Whether the buyer is ready to look for a new supplier.

Lastly, gauge your competitive advantage. Suppliers usually have their niche, though most will participate in scopes beyond this for a larger market share. If you’re not experienced in the industry, you can, again, utilize past tenders to help.

For suppliers who constantly win (the percentage of this depends on industry) a specific type of tender, consider it their niche. So unless you’re competing on different grounds (i.e pricing, better quality etc), you would not have the competitive advantage here.

Conclusion

With businesses becoming increasingly competitive, we have to be wise about how we spend our time and which leads to chase. While it may be harder to qualify leads from Open deals online, tracking the data on your potential buyers helps you qualify your leads better.

In today’s digital age, data is readily available to help us get better at what we do. With TenderBoard’s Supplier Portal, our Past Tender Database includes thousands of deals from 2014, giving you access to years of data to measure, track and analyse.

Try us out free for 30 days! No credit card needed and no obligation, our 30 day free trial gives you access to our Past Tender Data and Reports! Plus, we’ll send you alerts on relevant opportunities across 30+ websites & newspaper and you’ll also have access to the exclusive deals from TenderBoard’s buyers.

Questions? Reach out to us at hello@tenderboardasia.com.

Happy Bidding!