July has a habit of feeling like a fresh start. New financial year. New budgets. New revenue targets. New pipeline forecasts. For many organisations, it is also the point where reality begins to separate from ambition.
Back in January, most bid teams had a plan. Growth targets were set. Key pursuits were identified. Improvement initiatives were discussed. Training budgets were approved. Content libraries were going to be refreshed. Win rates were going to improve.
Six months later, the key question to ask yourself is:
What have you learned?
Not what opportunities you have pursued. Not how many submissions you’ve completed. What have the first six months of the year actually taught you about your bid function?
The organisations that consistently improve their win rates are not necessarily the ones that work harder. They are the ones that stop periodically and reflect. They treat winning and losing as data, rather than simply moving on to the next opportunity.
Unfortunately, many teams never make time for that reflection. A tender is submitted. The team takes a breath. Then the next opportunity arrives. The cycle repeats.
Over time, valuable lessons are lost, recurring problems become normalised, and opportunities to improve remain hidden in plain sight. July presents an opportunity to break that cycle. With six months behind you and six months ahead, this is arguably the most useful point in the year to step back and assess the health of your bid function.
Look Beyond the Win Rate
Win rate matters, but it rarely tells the whole story. A declining win rate may be a symptom of poor qualification decisions rather than poor proposal quality. An increasing win rate might reflect a favourable pipeline rather than genuine capability improvements.
The more valuable questions sit beneath the headline number. Are we pursuing the right opportunities? Are we deploying our best people on the highest-value pursuits? Are we learning from losses? Are we investing enough time in strategy before writing begins? Are our content libraries helping us move faster, or are they becoming a graveyard of outdated material? Most importantly, are our teams set up for sustainable success?
The answers to those questions often reveal far more than win-loss statistics ever will.
The 30-Minute Bid Health Check
Gather your bid leadership team, key pursuit stakeholders, or anyone responsible for work winning and ask yourselves the following five questions.
1. What patterns are emerging in our wins and losses?
Look for common themes rather than isolated examples. Are competitors consistently outperforming you in certain areas? Are particular sectors, customers or opportunity types producing stronger results?
2. Are we saying no often enough?
A healthy pipeline is not measured by volume alone. Review the opportunities you declined, as well as those you pursued. Strong pursuit discipline remains one of the most powerful drivers of long-term win rates.
3. How stretched is the team?
Consider workload, capability and resilience. If a key bid manager resigned tomorrow, what would happen? If the answer creates discomfort, you’ve identified a risk worth addressing.
4. Is our content library still serving us?
Many organisations invest significant effort building content libraries only to stop maintaining them. Outdated case studies, expired statistics and generic responses create more work than they save.
5. What is one improvement we can implement before the end of the quarter?
Not ten improvements. One. The most effective bid functions focus on continuous improvement rather than wholesale transformation.
Small Improvements Compound
There is a tendency to think bid excellence comes from major process redesigns, new technology platforms or large training programs. Sometimes it does. More often, it comes from dozens of small improvements made consistently over time. A sharper qualification framework, a stronger lessons learned process, better use of evidence, more disciplined reviews or a refreshed content library.
Individually these changes may seem incremental. Collectively, they can have a significant impact on team efficiency, submission quality and ultimately win rates. As FY27 begins, resist the temptation to immediately focus on the next bid in the pipeline. Instead, take thirty minutes to understand what the last six months have already taught you. The lessons are there. The question is whether you’re making time to find them.
Would you like an independent perspective on the health of your bid function? Sometimes the quickest way to identify improvement opportunities is to bring in a fresh set of eyes. I’d be pleased to have a conversation about what’s working, what’s not, and where your greatest opportunities may lie.
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