What’s the craic from BPC Dublin?
APMP’s European Bid & Proposal Con (BPC) was held in Dublin 13-14 March this year and APMP ANZ member Marnie Payne CF APMP has shared her takeaways from the conference.
One of the challenges of working in bids and pursuits (whether working on proposals or managing pursuit teams) is there are always deadlines to be managed and rarely enough time to get everything you want done. This can result in an overly narrow focus and burnout if not managed, and one of the best ways I have found to prevent this is to invest time in professional development and making connections with other proposal professionals.
This year I did so by extending a planned business trip to the UK so I could travel to Ireland to attend APMP’s Bid & Proposal Con (BPC) Dublin.
One of the topics I was particularly interested in for this conference was the use of generative AI in bidding, having been focussed on bid system and process upgrades for the prior 18 months. Generative AI is a fast-moving area that has evolved from early hype to delivering real value at the enterprise level in record time, with what seems like daily changes to proposal-specific systems and usage still happening.
Sometimes it feels impossible to keep up with all of the developments as they occur (particularly if you have a busy day job), and much of what I had seen in the proposal space had been theoretical – potential use cases or demos rather than live examples from bid professionals.
BPC Dublin offered the opportunity to catch up on the real developments in generative AI and other relevant areas from experts from across Europe, and it did not disappoint. Not only were the presenters incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge and (often hard won) learnings, but the attendees had their own insights to share. The conversations between and about the sessions were lively and often as informative as the sessions themselves and this was also a great group to socialise with.
Some of my highlights from BPC Dublin were (session descriptions based on my notes and recollections, so apologies to the presenters if I have any details wrong):
An early discussion with a proposal team head working in the American healthcare sector. He led a team of around 50 bid professionals working on 3-4 bids a year and was intrigued by the teams working in high volume environments. I was intrigued by the level of stress his team must feel when every bid is super high stakes (and value).
Christina Godfrey Carter’s session on using a secure Chat GPT to take real win/loss data for an organisation and use that to a) identify what is driving bid outcomes for that organisation and b) create an interactive qualification tool for the organisation based on that data. No coding required to create the tool – just the data and prompting to have Chat GPT create it. Christina shared that she had already been doing the win/loss analysis, but it had taken days to do so each time – Chat GPT has made the analysis almost instantaneous and built a tool that gives a definitive go/no go based on that analysis. As someone who believes data analysis is foundational to driving behaviour change and improving win rates, I found this session fantastic (and everyone else did too based on the applause at the end)
Graham Ablett’s presentation of the results of a recent Strategic Proposals survey and what it was saying about AI use in bidding. I had already seen the survey, but Graham shared anecdotes to illuminate the data, which indicated major changes in the market since just last year
Michael Gerner’s session on how he had achieved a 100% evaluation on a proposal. He made a sanitised version of the document available to those who wanted to see what that looked like – a rare opportunity to see a real example of someone else’s best practice work. And I loved that Michael uses the STAR + Relevance approach to case studies – my go-to approach also!
The second day plenary session where Dr Mark Keane, a professor specialising in AI at Dublin University, shared his insights into what improves the performance of generative AI now, and what functionality is coming soon (and confirmed that yes, functionality is really changing daily). He also shared his experience from earlier generation AI hype cycles and what he learned from them. He also shared that marked course work is no longer used in his courses because AI means it is no longer reflective of students’ knowledge - he is now using in-person exams to grade students. I couldn’t help but think this is something procurement are likely considering too, and that pitch presentations are going to be more important for decision making in the near future.
The session by Dirk Günter Karl Müller and Ken Lebek from Vodafone Germany and Jennifer Cannizzaro from Responsive where they discussed the journey the Vodafone Germany team had gone through to put in the Responsive bid system. They shared what worked as expected, where they had to change approach, and the integrations, resources and processes they have put in place to keep the system delivering as needed. This was the first detailed session I had seen on a project to transition to bid-specific proposal software that uses generative AI and was a real stand-out session for me.
It was also great to meet some of the QorusDocs team in person, having worked with them virtually for over a year on a major bid system upgrade project, and making new connections with proposal professionals from throughout Europe (and around the world).
Attending BPC Dublin was a significant commitment, particularly because of the travel required, but one I am glad I made. And I am looking forward to attending an APMP conference closer to home next year with the APMP ANZ Conference to be held in Melbourne. I have attended the previous two APMP ANZ Conferences and would highly recommend attending (or sending some of your team) if you have the opportunity!
