One of the most important decisions to get right in bidding for large infrastructure projects is the degree to which the client is motivated by “function” vs “feeling”.  This is ideally something that is considered early as it shapes your bid strategy to win right from the start.

Function is the tangible and concrete aspects of a bid which include:

• Relevant experience and track record
• Competency and experience of the team
• Credibility of the project methodology
• Proposed design (for D&C projects and other procurement models)
• Delivery culture of the bidder and their partners
• Pricing and commercials

Feeling is the emotions a bid team stimulate in a client, and how that impacts on whether the client wants to work with them.  There are three types of emotions a client may experience about a bid team which include:

• Excitement
• Boredom
• Anxiety

In a perfect world, most teams would aspire to been seen favourable in function and feeling, however it is useful to understand how and when these factors play out, and when one is more important than the other.

As a general rule of thumb, “function” is most important when you are:

• Bidding to an experienced client who has delivered many infrastructure projects before and has been burnt by a team who focused on the feeling but failed to deliver
• Bidding to a client with a strong “sensing” preference and places greater trust in evidence, facts and creditability.  That is, they favour the “five senses” that they can touch, feel and see
• Bidding for hard dollar contracts such as design and construct, measure and value, or construct only lump sum where cost and project certainty is considered a priority
• In the written RFP stage of the submission as clients score evidence-based bids more favourably as they have greater confidence you will deliver on your promises

As a general rule of thumb “feeling” is most important when:

• Bidding to an inexperienced client who may not fully understand the risk they are buying and be naïve around what they are looking for and are looking for the right collaborative team to help guide them through the process and subsequent project
• Bidding to a client with a strong “feeling” preference and places greater trust in empathy, connection and working together.  Examples of this may include taking key stakeholders along for the journey, the ability to build social licence for their project or key partnerships or collaborations that are critical for project success
• Bidding for collaborative contracts such as Alliances, Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) or professional service contracts
• In the interactive and interview stage of the submission as clients remember how you made them feel and what their experience was which is pivotal in the overall evaluation process

At the early stages in a bid, it’s critical to assess the client’s preference for function vs feel, and when this is important in the process.  One of the key decisions in particularly is around who you partner with, which leaders you appoint to the project, and the blend of people in terms of their characteristics you have in your team.  The other aspect is understanding the Tender Evaluation Team (TET) preferences is also important in working through how they will assess your written submission and team.

In making this decision, its critical bidders have self-awareness around their own organisational culture, project track record and natural preferences.  Some organisations I have worked with have a strong focus on function in work winning and others have a strong focus on feeling in work winning.  It does not mean one is better or worse, but this awareness is important in terms of aligning with the client’s needs and wants and the ability to pivot at the right time through the bidding and procurement process.

If your organisation has a natural preference towards function, but your client’s preference is towards feeling then you a likely to lose unless you make some major adjustments.  Likewise if your natural preference is towards feeling, but your client’s preference is towards function then you will lose without substantial changes in your bid strategy.  In fact, you often see trends in who wins what types of projects based on this which is important to review early in the bid strategy process.  What lessons can we learn from previous bids?  What tendencies does our client have?  Is the team we are putting up aligned to these preferences?  Does our project track record look favourably against the client preferences?  All good questions to consider and assess.

The really smart bidding organisations are intentional around this.  They understand which clients to focus on function vs feeling, which procurement models to focus on function vs feeling, and which stages in the procurement process to focus on function vs feeling and then build their team and strategy around this. Slowing down to work through this so that you can build trust with the client with your submission and interactives is pivotal in bidding to win v participating in the bidding process.