01. A bid team of nine has worked the last three weekends on a rail franchise response, and four weeks remain. Section drafts are now coming back with requirement numbers transposed and evidence references pointing at the wrong annex, faults the same people did not make in the first month. The production window is fixed and the outline is complete.
What should the proposal manager do?
a) Stand the team down this weekend and re-plan the remaining four weeks to a five-day week.
b) Ask the bid director for two more writers, so the remaining sections are absorbed at the current pace.
c) Bring the red team forward by a week, so the faults surface while there is still time to correct them.
d) Add a checking step before content reaches review, so the transposed numbers are caught rather than carried.
02. A university expected to run an open tender for its student-accommodation maintenance. It has instead joined a national framework, so the work will come as a mini-competition among four suppliers already appointed to it. The group is one of the four.
The call-off documents, which will carry the timetable and the evaluation model, are due next week. The group has a capture plan built over five months and a proposal management plan drafted last week.
Which plan has to change first, and on what grounds?
a) The proposal management plan, because a mini-competition runs to a shorter timetable and the schedule and reviews have to be rebuilt around it.
b) The capture plan, because the competitive field is now three known rivals and the route into the decision has changed.
c) Neither yet, because the customer's needs have not changed and the win strategy rests on those.
d) The compliance matrix, because the requirements will now come from the call-off documents rather than from an open tender.
03. At the pink team review of a municipal waste-collection tender, a reviewer marks requirement 4.7, vehicle telematics reporting, as unanswered in the fleet section. The author shows that it is answered, in three paragraphs of the mobilization section.
The compliance matrix maps 4.7 to the fleet section. The tender states that each requirement is assessed by the evaluator assigned to the section in which the response places it, and the fleet section is already at its stated page limit.
What should be done?
a) Move the three paragraphs into the fleet section, so the content sits where the matrix already places it.
b) Record the finding for red team, so the fix is made once the response is otherwise complete.
c) Treat it as a reviewer error, since the content exists and the compliance check comes later.
d) Re-point the matrix at the mobilization section and cross-refer to it from the fleet section.
04. A housing association has published its repairs and maintenance tender. Its procurement officer has written to all bidders: every question goes through the portal, and approaching operational staff during the tender period will be treated as grounds for exclusion.
Your account manager has worked with the association's head of asset management for four years and wants to call her about the specification.
What should the bid manager do?
a) Allow the call as a courtesy, on the understanding that the tender itself is not discussed.
b) Ask the procurement officer to permit one meeting with the head of asset management, minuted and copied to every bidder.
c) Hold the call and put the question through the portal.
d) Let the call go ahead, since the instruction constrains the bid team rather than an established account relationship.
05. A writer on a rebid for a regional hospital's catering contract has four pieces of evidence available and wants to use all of them. The proposal manager works through them with her, establishing what each one is actually capable of proving to an evaluator.
Evidence available
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A. A customer satisfaction score from the last three years of this same contract
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B. An independently audited safety statistic covering the whole business
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C. A named referee at a comparable organization who has agreed to speak
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D. A vendor accreditation certificate the firm holds
What it can legitimately support
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1. That a capability exists, rather than that it has produced a result
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2. Something the evaluator can verify without taking the firm's word for it
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3. The standard the firm holds itself to across its operations, rather than this site's performance
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4. The service this customer is already receiving from the firm
Which mapping pairs each piece of evidence with what it can legitimately support?
a) A - 4, B - 3, C - 2, D - 1
b) A - 2, B - 4, C - 3, D - 1
c) A - 4, B - 2, C - 3, D - 1
d) A - 4, B - 2, C - 1, D - 3
06. Ten days into a tender for a council's grounds maintenance contract, a contributor finds an ambiguity in the specification that materially changes how much plant the firm would need. The clarification window closes in three days. He suggests interpreting it in the firm's favor and noting the assumption, rather than asking, so as not to alert competitors to the gap.
What should the proposal manager weigh in deciding?
a) That an assumption stated in the response gives the firm room to renegotiate the plant requirement after award.
b) That raising it late in the window suggests the firm has only just read the specification properly.
c) That the ambiguity may be deliberate, and that the council will therefore decline to resolve it.
d) That an assumption carries the risk if the interpretation is wrong, whereas a published answer binds the council and applies to every bidder equally.
07. A software company is bidding a two-year subscription contract for a consortium of universities. At the second gate the bid board asks the proposal manager what it costs to carry on.
The bid has spent about 14,000 dollars on travel, a pricing consultant and print, and has used roughly a third of the bid team's capacity for six weeks. Two other opportunities are waiting for the same three people.
What should the proposal manager put in front of the board?
a) The 14,000 dollars already committed, together with the direct spend still forecast to submission.
b) The price to win derived from the customer's budget and the competing field, which sets what the bid can afford to spend.
c) The bid team's remaining capacity and what else it could be put on, alongside the direct spend still to come.
d) The contract's expected margin across the two years, set against the total cost of bidding for it.
08. An engineering consultancy is preparing to bid a port authority's asset management contract. The business development director circulates the SWOT produced at the firm's annual strategy day, covering market position, staff turnover, balance sheet strength and sector outlook, and asks the capture team to work from it.
What is the problem with using it?
a) It is nine months old, and the market position it records, like the sector outlook beside it, will have moved since the strategy day.
b) It describes the consultancy, not its position on this opportunity, against this requirement and these competitors.
c) It carries no weightings, leaving the team unable to tell which of the strengths the customer values most.
d) It was produced by the board rather than by the people who will write and price the response.
09. A payroll outsourcing provider's account team has secured a first meeting with the finance director of a multi-site retailer. The team has prepared a capability presentation: the platform, the service levels, the accreditations and three client logos.
What should the meeting be for instead?
a) Learning what the customer's present arrangement costs it in time, risk and management attention.
b) Establishing whether the retailer's procurement route would allow a direct award or require a full tender.
c) Showing the platform against the service levels and response times the retailer's current provider is contracted to.
d) Confirming the accreditations meet the retailer's supplier onboarding and information security requirements, so nothing blocks a bid later.
10. Two reviewers have returned findings on the same section of a managed service desk bid for a retail chain. One says the section is far too technical for the people who will read it; the other says it lacks the technical depth the criterion demands. Both reviewers are senior and both are certain. The section owner has asked the proposal manager which instruction to follow.
How should the proposal manager resolve it?
a) Take the middle course, trimming the technical detail and adding a summary paragraph for the general reader.
b) Go back to the published criterion and the evaluator profile, because those decide the depth.
c) Follow the more senior reviewer, since review time is short and the section owner needs one instruction.
d) Return both findings to the section owner, who knows the subject and is best placed to reconcile them.