Proposal teams often face rollout failure when process change is treated as internal, not transformational.
Process change is not just a bid team issue
The challenge
Proposal teams often design excellent bid processes and even invest in proposal training to support them. But when these processes are rolled out, they fail to gain traction. Why? Because they're treated as internal improvements rather than organisation-wide transformations.
Overcoming the challenge
We've recently spoken with clients across financial services, defence, and professional services who faced the same issue. Each had developed strong bid processes and trained their proposal managers. Yet, each saw their efforts stall at rollout.
The root cause? The process was built within the bid team, without engaging the wider organisation. Contributors didn't understand the change. Senior management weren't briefed. The rollout was under the radar, and the impact was shallow.
Proposal writing and process change must be treated as transformational. That means:
Building a clear business case for change.
Performing impact analysis on time, effort, and skills across all stakeholders.
Engaging contributors and leadership early and often.
Communicating the "why" behind the change, not just the "what."
Without this, proposal teams get frustrated, contributors get confused, and the process fails to deliver its intended value.
How we can help
At Strategic Proposals, we help clients treat proposal process change as a transformation:
We build business cases that resonate with leadership.
We assess impact across roles, culture, and ways of working.
We support rollout with stakeholder engagement and proposal training.
