Presales vs. Bid Management
The Next Leap Editorial 
Often people think what is the difference between Presales and Bid Management? Recruiters often get confused whom to catch hold for Presales consultant and whom for Bid Management requirement. I being in the Bid Management functions for over a decade and interacted with many “presales consultant” closely, thought of bringing the difference between these two. Ideally there is a hair line difference between presales consultants and bid managers.
The job role of Presales consultants majorly covers solution architecting, deriving Rough order of Magnitude (ROM) pricing, show casing Proof of Concepts (POC) to customer and addressing their concern before they actually buy the product or services. They also contribute actively in responding to proactive and reactive proposals. Their role is specific to certain technologies or product. Although they are responsible for providing technical solution and responses to customer queries but they are not accountable for the submission and overall governance of the proposal.
On the other hand, Bid Managers are basically CEO of the bid. Managing the pursuit till the submission or hand over to delivery (in case of a win) is Bid Managers responsibility. This is not only limited to the bid governance. It covers a range of activities which starts from demand generation till closure of the deal. Be it opportunity qualification, competitive analysis, client solution strategy, solution and costing, they are actively involved in all phases of the pursuit. They act as a bridge between the different functions involved in the bid. Coordinating with solution architects, proposal managers, deal analysts and sales is key to success in this role. They may not write the solution but they know what is in the proposal and how to optimize the offerings by using productivity gains, resource pyramids and make it competitive among other bidders. These skills make a Bid Manager more effective during BAFO and contract negotiation stage. Responsibility and accountability of the overall bid governance lies on the Bid Managers.
In general, smaller companies do not afford to have both Presales Consultant and Bid Managers. In today’s cost concerned industry there are companies where you can find both of them together working on a bid or you can see only one working on the overall tasks. The final decision of having resources lies on the company. However both these roles are equally important in the success of the pursuit.
Author
Samrat Biswas
Director Presales, Virtusa
