When buyers embark on a digital transformation journey, there’s often a great deal of focus on selecting the right technology, finding the right implementation partner and defining what success should look like.
But what about the work that happens before any of that?
Before a project is awarded, a solution is designed or a delivery team is mobilised, buyers have already made a series of decisions that can significantly influence the success of their transformation.
From defining requirements and establishing budgets to setting procurement timelines and engaging internal stakeholders, the bid process is far more than an administrative exercise.
It’s an opportunity to lay the foundations for a successful partnership and, ultimately, a successful project.
Yet it’s also a stage where buyers can unintentionally introduce challenges.
Are the milestones realistic? Have the right stakeholders been involved? Is there a clear understanding of the business outcomes the buyer wants to achieve? And are prospective technology suppliers being given the information and time they need to propose the most appropriate solution?
Getting these things right can make a significant difference, not just to the quality of responses received, but to the delivery experience that follows.
To explore this further, I’ve caught up with Olivia Shaw, Bid Management Lead, EMEA & APAC at TTEC Digital, to share her perspective on how buyers can better prepare for the procurement process, common challenges she encounters and what makes a bid process genuinely effective for both buyers and prospective suppliers.
About Olivia
Having worked in the technology industry since 2018, Olivia has built her career in bid management, with seven years and counting in the profession. Today, her role spans EMEA and APAC, where she leads bid management across both regions alongside responsibility for ESG activity, giving her a varied remit across different markets, customers and opportunities.
Based in North Yorkshire, Olivia has a real passion for travelling and experiencing new places and cultures. This year has already taken her to Riga, Paris and Versailles, with some of her biggest adventures still to come, including Japan, South Korea and Lithuania. There’s rarely a time when the next trip isn’t being planned.
Sport is another big part of Olivia’s life, particularly Welsh rugby. A proud supporter, rugby will always be number one, although she also loves the buzz and atmosphere of live sport more generally and enjoys attending other sporting events whenever she gets the chance.
Her love of live experiences doesn’t stop there. Olivia is a keen theatre and concert-goer, enjoying everything from a great stage production to seeing her favourite artists live. And when it comes to concerts, Lady Gaga deserves a special mention, having seen her perform live three times so far.
Whether she’s working on the next bid, exploring somewhere new, cheering on Wales or heading to a show, Olivia likes to keep life busy, varied and full of new experiences.
1. Where do you most commonly see buyers going wrong when preparing to go out to tender for a technology project?
Kelly: From your experience, what are some of the most common mistakes buyers make before issuing an RFP or inviting suppliers to bid? Are there particular gaps in preparation that can create unnecessary challenges later in the process?
Olivia: One of the most common issues we see is buyers going to market before they are genuinely ready. Requirements may still be evolving, timelines can be too compressed, and suppliers are sometimes given insufficient notice to properly understand the requirement, bring together the right subject-matter experts and develop a considered response.
Earlier engagement can make a significant difference. The increased focus on preliminary market engagement provides a real opportunity for contracting authorities to engage suppliers through RFIs and other pre-market activity before formally going to tender. Used well, this allows suppliers to provide insight that can help shape the opportunity, test assumptions and highlight where requirements may unintentionally restrict the market.
The key is to treat an RFI as genuine engagement rather than simply another procurement step. Suppliers should be given enough time and information to provide meaningful input, and that insight should then inform the eventual procurement.
Overall, better preparation and greater visibility of what is coming to market benefit everyone: suppliers have time to plan resources, bring together the right expertise and develop stronger, more relevant responses, while buyers are more likely to receive realistic and well-considered solutions when the formal tender is issued.
How important is it for buyers to establish realistic milestones and timelines throughout the bid process?
Kelly: We often see ambitious deadlines attached to transformation programmes, but how can buyers ensure they’re allowing sufficient time for supplier engagement, clarification questions, solution development, evaluation and decision-making? What impact can unrealistic timescales have on the quality of responses and, potentially, the project itself?
Olivia: Realistic timelines are critical to getting the best outcome from a procurement. Where deadlines are too compressed, suppliers have less opportunity to fully understand the requirement, engage the right subject-matter experts, ask meaningful clarification questions and develop a comprehensive solution and response. A realistic response window gives suppliers time to develop the best solution, rather than simply the best solution achievable within the time available.
For complex technology and transformation programmes in particular, sufficient time allows suppliers to challenge assumptions, explore different solution options, validate their approach and bring together technical, commercial, security and delivery expertise. That ultimately gives the buyer a higher-quality response and a clearer picture of what suppliers can genuinely deliver.
Buyers should therefore work backwards from their intended decision and implementation dates, building in realistic time for supplier engagement, clarifications, solution development, internal approvals, evaluation and any subsequent negotiation or due diligence.
Longer timelines do not necessarily mean a slower procurement. Allowing sufficient time up front can reduce ambiguity, rushed decision-making and issues that might otherwise emerge later during contracting or delivery.
Simply put, if buyers want comprehensive, well-considered solutions from the market, suppliers need sufficient time to develop them.
What information should buyers have prepared before approaching potential technology suppliers?
Kelly: How much detail should buyers provide around their current technology landscape, existing challenges, business requirements, integrations, budgets and desired outcomes? And where is the balance between providing enough information for an accurate proposal and remaining open to a supplier’s recommendations?
Olivia: Buyers should provide suppliers with a clear picture of both their current environment and their future direction. That should include the existing technology landscape, key challenges and pain points, business requirements, integration dependencies, relevant contractual or commercial constraints, desired outcomes and, where possible, budget expectations.
A clear technology or transformation roadmap is particularly valuable. It helps suppliers understand not only the immediate requirement, but how the solution needs to support the buyer’s longer-term ambitions. Without that context, there is a risk of suppliers designing a solution around the tender requirements rather than the wider business need.
We also find presentation and engagement sessions particularly valuable. Giving buyers and suppliers the opportunity to discuss the current environment, challenges and roadmap, with time for questions and discussion, can provide much richer context than written documentation alone.
There is a balance, however. Buyers should be clear about the problem they are trying to solve, their desired outcomes and any genuine constraints, but avoid being overly prescriptive about how those outcomes must be achieved. Part of the value of engaging the technology market is accessing suppliers’ experience, innovation and recommendations.
Most importantly, the more relevant context suppliers have, the better positioned they are to develop an accurate and comprehensive proposal, while still having the flexibility to recommend alternative approaches that could deliver a better outcome.
How can buyers ensure the right people are involved in the bid process from the outset?
Kelly: Digital transformation projects rarely affect just one department. How important is it to involve business stakeholders, IT, procurement, finance and operational teams early? What challenges can arise when key decision-makers or subject matter experts aren’t engaged until later in the process?
Olivia: Buyers should be organised from the outset and identify the key individuals who genuinely need to be involved in the procurement. For a technology transformation, a good approach is to have one key individual from each relevant area, such as IT, procurement, legal, finance and operations, alongside an appropriate senior leader or executive sponsor, ensuring each area has a clear voice without making the core team unnecessarily large.
Having the right subject-matter experts involved early helps validate requirements, identify constraints and answer supplier questions before they become issues later in the process. Senior sponsorship is equally important, providing direction and ensuring key decisions can be made when required. Bringing a key stakeholder in at the final stages can result in requirements changing, decisions being revisited or suppliers having to rework elements of their solution.
However, there is also a risk of having too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many stakeholders can introduce competing priorities, inconsistent feedback and slower decision-making. Having one key representative from each department creates clearer ownership and allows that individual to coordinate wider input from their respective team where needed.
Ultimately, it is about having the right people involved at the right time, with clear roles and responsibilities from the outset. A focused, well-organised buyer team makes it easier for suppliers to engage effectively and keeps the procurement moving in a clear and consistent direction.
What makes a good RFP, and how can buyers get more meaningful responses from potential suppliers?
Kelly: Beyond a detailed list of technical requirements, what distinguishes an effective RFP from one that creates confusion or limits innovation? How can buyers structure their questions, evaluation criteria and supplier engagement to encourage more relevant, transparent and commercially realistic proposals?
Olivia: A good RFP starts with the buyer really understanding their requirements and what they want to achieve. It sounds obvious, but that groundwork is critical to getting meaningful responses from suppliers.
One common mistake is taking an RFP from a previous procurement, perhaps from four or five years ago, and simply refreshing it. Technology, business priorities and business needs evolve quickly, so requirements that were relevant then may no longer reflect what the buyer actually needs today.
Buyers should take the opportunity to review and challenge every requirement, remove anything that is no longer relevant and consider what has changed since the last procurement. They should be clear about their desired outcomes and genuine constraints, while leaving enough flexibility for suppliers to recommend different or more innovative approaches.
The RFP itself should then be clear and focused. Questions should have a purpose, evaluation criteria should reflect what genuinely matters to the buyer, and suppliers should be given enough context to provide an accurate, commercially realistic and comprehensive response.
In short, don’t start with the old RFP. Start with what you need today and where you want to go next. That creates a much stronger foundation for suppliers to propose the right solution.
If you could give one piece of advice to buyers preparing to begin a technology procurement process, what would it be?
Kelly: What’s the one thing you’d encourage buyers to do before releasing their RFP to ensure they enter the process with greater clarity, confidence and the best possible foundation for a successful transformation?
Olivia: My advice would be to look at what other buyers are doing and learn from what is working well for them. Technology transformation does not happen in isolation, and there is a lot of value in understanding how other buyers have approached similar challenges, what solutions they have implemented and what they would do differently.
Before releasing an RFP, buyers should speak to peers, review comparable transformation programmes and engage with the supplier market to understand what good looks like. This can help validate their thinking, identify approaches they may not have considered and avoid repeating challenges that others have already encountered.
The objective should not be to simply replicate another buyer’s solution, as every environment and set of requirements will be different. Instead, buyers can use those insights to benchmark their own approach and build a clearer roadmap for what they want to achieve.
Combined with early supplier engagement, this gives buyers a much stronger foundation before going to market. They can approach the procurement with a clearer understanding of the outcomes they want, while remaining open to suppliers bringing forward new ideas and recommendations.
Closing Thoughts
It’s easy to think of the bid process as simply the stage where buyers compare suppliers, evaluate costs and select a technology partner.
But its influence extends far beyond the procurement decision.
The quality of the preparation, the clarity of the requirements and the realism of the expectations established at this stage can shape everything that follows, from solution design and commercial agreements to implementation timelines and long-term business outcomes. And while buyers cannot anticipate every challenge before a project begins, investing time in preparation can help reduce uncertainty, improve collaboration and create a more productive relationship with prospective suppliers.
Because a successful transformation doesn’t start when the contract is signed. It starts long before the first bid is submitted.
