Get Better at Competitive Bidding, CRM and Purchasing -- Benchmarking Services for Companies and Professional Firms
What proportion of competitive bids you submit do you win? How good are you at securing repeat business and cross selling? Do you burn money when buying? However good you are at bidding for business, building customer relationships and purchasing a comprehensive benchmarking service is now available to help you assess your performance against your average and highest achieving competitors and identify what you need to concentrate upon to raise your game.
(PRWEB) October 9, 2006 -- Commercial companies and professional firms can now benchmark three activities that are critical to competitive success: winning business, building key account relationships and purchasing. Completing a questionnaire enables them to compare their own approaches with those of their peers and most successful competitors as recorded in the database of a continuing investigation led by Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas of the University of Lincoln. Participating companies receive a bespoke report and confidentiality is observed.
According to Coulson-Thomas, “Winning business activities and performance can be compared with companies in general or specific sectors. Professional firms can compare themselves both across and within particular professions. Related research reports identifying critical success factors for winning business in sectors such as engineering and manufacturing and IT and telecoms can help participating companies to take appropriate action. Professional fields covered range from accountancy and the law to engineering, IT and management consulting.”
The winning business benchmark reports covering seven professions - management consultancy, IT and Telecoms consultancy, engineering consultancy, PR and Marketing consultancy, advertising, accountancy and the legal profession - compare performance at 128 activities. Each benchmark analysis is structured so that it is easy to use while studying the related winning business report. Following hints on how to interpret the ten pages of statistical tables, comparisons are made with all other firms in the database and those that are the most successful at winning new business.
Prof. Coulson-Thomas explains: “To help users pinpoint the issues which are really important for their firms, the benchmark reports contain a ‘top ten action checklist’ which highlights where the particular firm falls furthest behind the most successful. This can enable firms that are already successful to identify and address particular weaknesses. The comparisons are equally valid for small and large firms because the issues covered are relevant for all those seeking new clients.”
The purchasing benchmark covers 137 issues and again the resulting report includes comparisons with the average for all companies in the database and those that win most benefits from their purchasing functions, as well as a ‘top ten action checklist’. A related report ‘Effective Purchasing, the critical success factors’ highlights what the most successful companies do differently and can be used to identify what need to be done to address deficiencies revealed by the benchmarking report.
The building strategic and key account relationships with customers benchmark examines 110 factors in eight areas ranging from selection to locking out competitors. Again there is a related report ‘Developing Strategic and Key Account Customers’ which can be used to better understand the results of a benchmarking exercise and determine how best to respond, while for those for whom customer management is a priority there is a series of 28 ‘Close to the Customer’ briefings.
Coulson-Thomas believes most companies could do much better in all of the areas examined: “Even the top quartile high performers are only very effective at less than half of the critical success factors, while because virtually all of the critical success factors are attitudinal and behavioural most of them can be quickly adopted. It has never been easier for companies and professional practices to discover what they need to improve and take appropriate action. Over 1,000 firms have now participated and very significant improvements have been achieved.”
Further information can be obtained from www.ntwkfirm.com/policy-publications/
Bespoke winning business benchmarking reports, a related ‘Winning New Business’ resource pack, and winning business reports covering individual sectors and seven professions can be obtained from Policy Publications: Tel: +44 (0) 1733 361 149, Fax: +44 (0)1733 361459 or from www.ntwkfirm.com/policy-publications/
A range of further support services are also available from the winning business research and best practice programme led by Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas, co-author of ‘Winning New Business, the critical success factors’ and author of ‘Winning Companies; Winning People’, who has reviewed the winning business processes and practices of over 100 companies and spoken at sales and business development events in some 30 countries. He can be contacted via Tel: +44 (0) 1733 361 149, Fax: +44 (0)1733 361459 or www.coulson-thomas.com
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