01The question
“Why do we win less of what we quote than we used to?”
02What people said
“Every proposal goes to a director. They’re on site three days a week.”Associate engineer Invented excerpt
“We could send most of these in two days. They sit in someone’s inbox.”Bid coordinator Invented excerpt
“We lose on price. The bigger firms undercut us.”The managing director, in the first call Invented excerpt
03What the systems recorded
- 9 working days on median from request to quote.
- Within each size band, quotes sent within three days won about twice as often as those sent after seven.
- Of the 34 lost quotes where the client named the winner, the firm’s quote was cheaper in 14, within 5% in 7, and more than 5% dearer in 13.
04What the procedure says
Every quote is reviewed by a director before it goes.
05The other explanations, and why the evidence ruled them out
- Price, as the main cause
- Where the client named the winner, the firm was cheaper or within 5% in 21 of 34 losses, and the speed gap holds when the 13 dearer quotes are set aside. The 34 are only the losses where the client said who won.
- Bid size
- The speed gap holds within each size band.
- Triage, where unwanted bids are done last
- The gap holds for bids the directors had marked as wanted.
06The decision and its owner
Keep the director review, add a second reviewer and a two-day review target, so no quote waits for one person’s office days.
OwnerThe managing director
07What they agreed to compare next
Days to quote and the win rate over the next two quarters.
Illustrative. A composite with invented details, written to show how an investigation runs.