Hard FM

Two multi-national clients commissioned us to support their joint venture for a strategically important contract for the maintenance of defence infrastructure on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

For the project, our team of four writers co-located with the clients’ bid team for over 5 months, working alongside their subject matter experts. We then drew on our significant experience of hard FM to demonstrate their client’s expertise and added value as we drafted the responses. Topics included mobilising the service, recruitment of resource, managing a supply chain, managing assets, delivering works projects, and meeting a planned preventative maintenance programme.

The narrative then went through an iterative process of review and challenge over a number of weeks, ensuring it continued to reflect the solution.

This was a highly successful project for the clients, winning two out of three Lots and a contract worth £3.4bn. The clients subsequently invited our team back to support a further bid to the Ministry of Defence.

We assisted a FTSE top 250 client with the preparation of a successful tender to the Home Office for the management, operation, and maintenance of Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre, providing secure accommodation for male and female detainees. Our support extended across both the Invitation to Tender, Negotiation, and Best and Final Offer (BAFO) stages and lasted 6 months.

For this tender, we supplied a team of four writers, working closely with the client’s FM subject matter experts to interview for each of the Home Office’s questions to ensure the responses reflected their proposed solution for the maintenance of the centre.

Our client was delighted to win back-to-back tenders and Dungavel IRC represents a strategic part of their contract portfolio.

We were commissioned by a national utilities company to provide civil engineering and FM services to support a new bid to Heathrow Airport. This was an exciting opportunity for the client as it would involve them significantly expanding their services in the aviation sector – and for such a prestigious client.

The project lasted 7 weeks, working with the client’s team of subject matter experts to understand their solution and challenging them constructively where we felt they could increase evidence of their expertise. We also provided consultancy on how to prepare their mobilisation plan for the contract.

This was a highly successful project, where the client was delighted with the outcome of our work, resulting in a high-quality bid that is currently under evaluation by Heathrow.

A leading facilities management and professional services company approached Kittle to support a bid to provide Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) for LSBU and South Bank College, including cleaning, security, and grounds maintenance.

As a repeat client, they knew the quality we bring and so were happy to be assigned a team of three Bid Writers for the project. Our writers collaborated with the client’s subject matter experts and graphic designers to create compelling bid responses covering a variety of topics, including service delivery approach, service transformation, H&S management, and contract management.

Our client was struggling to know where to go above and beyond the requirements and add value, which was a necessity for top marks. Because of their wider experience with FM and other bids, our writers were able to propose where the client could achieve this while protecting their budget.

The client was extremely happy with the work our writers produced and the project was successful, resulting in a £54mn contract win.

Our client, a German logistics and FM provider, contracted us for support on their first bid into the UK. They were bidding into the DIO to provide total FM (including cleaning, security, and waste) for the DIO’s Defence Estate on the South Atlantic Islands. The bid required over 500 pages of content across multiple, highly technical service lines, so we provided a large team of seven Bid Writers to draft and consult on responses to ensure they scored highly.

As it was their first time bidding into the UK government, our client chose us to provide expert guidance around unfamiliar requirements such as social value, TUPE regulations, and BIM. Our team attended weekly calls with the DIO and also supported our client with the BAFO stage, demonstrating our ability to provide a wraparound, end-to-end service.

The client was extremely happy with our service and their Bid Manager left us the following feedback:

“Kittle was a sensational help! The writers had their heads in the game right from the start. Proactively searching for information themselves, always reachable, absolute professionals. Very flexible in the whole process and absolutely committed and engaged. Could not think of a better company to work with. Highly recommended!”

One of our repeat clients, an FTSE 250 outsourcing provider, wanted writing support for the first stage of their bid into the HMRC. The bid was to supply Hard and Soft Facilities Management services across 67 sites of the HMRC estate.

We assigned one writer to integrate with the client’s internal bid team and support them on two responses. Our writer interviewed Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to capture vital information, and then drafted responses that emphasised innovation in the client’s solution.

An early challenge encountered on the bid was the unavailability of the main SME, owing to their busy schedule. Our writer managed and mitigated this challenge through their own proactive research and by using collateral to shape the two responses. Our client was delighted with our bid writer’s work and extended the duration of our booking for a further two weeks so we could assist them up to the bid submission.

Our client was successful in their tender, and we received great feedback from an independent reviewer regarding the work of our bid writer:

“This response is entirely consistent with the evaluator’s expectations from a structure, logic and flow perspective. All five areas of the response are strong, demonstrating an effective and “real” approach to continuous improvement and innovation. The structure is clear and easy to navigate. The language, grammar and readability are all excellent.”