Overview of the skill sets required for an effective bid / presales professional

1. Secret Sauce for the Effective Presales
/ Bid manager
Mandeep Singh

2. Agenda
 Hard Skills = Contextual + Analytical
◦ Understanding the domain and Trends
◦ Understanding the Technology and Trends
◦ Understanding the numbers
◦ Understanding the overall Solution
 Soft Skills = Getting the Job Done + Building your brand
◦ End to End Ownership
◦ Communication – Verbal, Written, Non – Verbal
 Clean, finished product
◦ Your Stakeholders – and their Agenda
◦ Negotiating - Levers at your disposal, Role play
◦ Balancing the Ecosystem – Behavioral Tendencies
 War Stories
 The Secret Sauce
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3. Hard Skills - Contextual
 Understanding the domain and Trends
◦ Construct the Porter’s 5 forces for the Industry
◦ SWOT Analysis
◦ Books: on BFSI, Energy, Utilities such as “The Prize”
◦ Online training sources on Industry processes
◦ Google!
 Understanding the Technology and Trends
◦ Gartner Forrester Reports
◦ Technology groups sales collateral, Competitive offerings
◦ Current in technologies on – Mobility, Cloud, Social Media, Analytics
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4. Hard Skills - Analytical
 Understanding the numbers
◦ What is the Price to Win (PTW)?
◦ Terms and Conditions of MSA / RFP
◦ Price per unit , Blended onshore/ offshore price, Blended price per hour
◦ TCV, Annual Efficiencies / Reduction in price
◦ MS Office tools – ppt, xls, doc, mpp, visio, etc. SPSS
 Understanding the overall Solution and Strategy
◦ What is the Win Theme?
◦ What is the Competitor Strategy?
 Choice of Technology
 Alliances
 Quality and Maturity of relationship etc
◦ What is the Delivery Solution?
 Which stage is the client at? Receptiveness to offshoring for example
 Efforts, Pyramids, Onshore / Offshore split, Delivery locations
 Choice of technology – eg SAP vs Oracle; PEGA vs iLog, etc
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5. Soft Skills = Getting the Job Done + Building
your brand
 End to End Ownership
◦ Focus on Outcomes
◦ Sight, Tag and Track
◦ Flagging Decision points
◦ Live and die the Bid plan
◦ Cover your bases – documenting conversations, assumptions
 Communication – Verbal, Written, Non – Verbal
◦ Clean, finished product
◦ Contextualize your email - Bullet your decision points / key points
◦ Crisp, Concise, Coherent
◦ Think, Aim, Fire – and cushion the recoil
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6. Soft Skills = Getting the Job Done + Building
your brand
 Your Stakeholders – and their Agenda
◦ Balance the eco system
◦ Sales Agenda : Quarterly focus, deal closure not deliverability, buying
business vs selling a service,
◦ Delivery Agenda : Staying on the tried and tested, shoring up effort
buffer, Elastic timelines, Resourcing issues, Billability
◦ Top Management Agenda: Topline, Bottomline, Profitability, Cash
Flow, Pipeline, Conversion factor and throughput, Billability
◦ Finance Agenda: By the rule book, Recovery from clients
◦ Legal Agenda: By the rule book, Caveatization
◦ HR Agenda: Policy book, Process, 
◦ Corporate Team’s Agenda: Centralization, Process, By the rule book
◦ Your Presales team Agenda – Down select, Saving Base, Reflected
Glory ?
◦ YOUR AGENDA - ?
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7. Soft Skills = Getting the Job Done + Building
your brand
 Negotiating - Levers at your disposal, Role play
◦ Play the part – you are bill code / level blind when it comes out to stating
the facts
◦ Quid pro quo
◦ Political Balance
 Crediting your account
 Encashing your Team’s or your Lead’s account
 Maintaining a +ve balance sheet
◦ Power of proximity and position
◦ Power of “blind” move, Calling bluff - and the dangers thereof
◦ Good Cop, Bad Cop
◦ Power of knowing
◦ Networking Power
◦ Knowing the HQ pulse
 Balance the ecosystem
◦ Swallowing your EGO
◦ Responding NOT Reacting
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8. War Stories
 Any one wants to share some?
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9. Finally what is the Secret Sauce?
 Hard Skills + Soft Skills + X = Blended Presales/Bid Manager
 Let us discuss what is X?
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10. Thank You
Mandeep Singh

11. Terms
 Quid pro quo (From the Latin meaning "what for what")[1] indicates
a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or
services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favor for a
favor" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "what
for what", "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch
my back, and I'll scratch yours"
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