PROCUREMENT
For procurement and finance
You are being asked to approve software for the bid team. This is what it replaces, and how it compares with what you already spend.
01
What you are actually funding
Software for the bid team. It replaces time the team currently spends looking for evidence and checking answers against the client’s specification — not the writing itself, which stays with your people.
The comparison worth making is not against doing nothing. It is against what the work costs you today, which is usually three things at once. The first is external bid support, priced per tender and rising with volume.
“We’re spending a load of money on externals at the moment… one good bid, right, you’re paying for per annum.” — Work-winning director, highways contractor
The second is headcount, which is what you reach for when volume grows and the external bill stops being defensible.
“Something else we do because we’re under pressure. We need to hire bid writers because of the time commitment.” — Head of business unit, civils contractor
The third is the tenders never submitted because there was no capacity to answer them properly. That one appears in no report, which is exactly why it is worth naming before anyone signs anything.
02
The arithmetic, using your own numbers
Take last year’s external bid spend and divide it by the tenders it covered. Take the fully-loaded cost of one bid resource. Set both against a licence, and against a team carrying roughly twice the live pipeline at the same headcount.
We are not going to hand you a savings-per-user figure. You have better numbers than we do, and a figure you have worked out yourself is one you can defend in a room where we are not present.
03
What to measure, and when to agree it
Agree the measures before you buy rather than after, when everyone has an interest in the answer. Four are enough:
- Live tenders handled per period, at the same headcount
- Win rate, and the quality score where the client publishes it
- External bid spend as a proportion of bid activity
- Tenders declined for capacity rather than for fit — the number that should fall to nearly zero
If those four move in the right direction over twelve months, the case made itself. If they do not, you have a straightforward conversation to have with us.
04
The questions you are going to ask
Contract and commercial. Standard terms, term length, notice, and what happens to your data on exit. Nothing in the contract is designed to make leaving expensive.
Comparability. There are real alternatives — generalist AI assistants, general RFP software, and external consultants — and each is a genuinely different thing. We have written the honest comparison rather than a straw man: generalist assistants and bid consultants.
References. We will give you named customers in your sector and at your scale. Ask for the ones we have not nominated as well.
Security and data protection. The technical position is set out for IT, with the controls, certifications and sub-processors at trust.blue-edge.ai. DPA, sub-processor list and data residency are available on request.
Financial standing and insurance. Available on request.
05
Try it on one of your own tenders first
We run a half-day trial on a tender you have already submitted, using your own submission history, at no cost. One customer used theirs to set a test: they had put a non-conformity into a previous bid and wanted to know whether the system would find it. It did.
That is a better basis for a decision than a demonstration on our data, and it puts the evidence in front of you before any money moves.
Start with one conversation
Bring a live bid, or a tender you have already submitted. Thirty minutes, no preparation needed.