MatchPoint demonstrates some tender touch

A PERTH firm is making the winning of tenders and contracts by other companies its business.

Marketer Piers Dudman created MatchPoint to help engineering and consulting companies get their bids across the line.

The company has done a lot of work in the engineering and construction industries, including helping Multiplex to win the contract to build the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Its other clients have included IBM, Rio Tinto, Fluor Daniel and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Mr Dudman has assembled a team of writers, professional skills coaches, marketing planners and presentation skills coaches.

One of those is document specialist Leith Finnie, who runs her own consultancy, called Par Excellence.

“Up to 10 people work for us and we plug them in to jobs as and when they are needed,” Mr Dudman said.

“For the past seven years I’d been running marketing and planning company Nightingale Consulting and a lot of our clients were asking us to put bids together for them.

“It seemed to be a good business opportunity so we created a company to do that.

“We’ve helped companies in more than $1 billion worth of contracts, grants and investment funds.

“The proposal graveyard is full of neglected client relationships, documents that don’t sell, lifeless presentations and money left on the negotiating table.

“Bidding is usually left up to a line manager who is an expert in his or her field, but often does not have the experience or skills to put together a winning bid.”

Mr Dudman started his career working on projects in the engineering and oil and gas industries, before heading into marketing.

He plans to build his bidding company

in Perth before moving it nationally.

“We’re always just a stone’s throw away from international work,” Mr Dudman said.

He also refuses to work for a success fee.

“We know we can build a company’s success rate over time but I don’t like the idea of a success fee. Just charging for the work done seems cleaner somehow,” he said.

Mr Dudman said while bids could be ferociously contested, dirty tricks were not as common as people thought.

“You rarely get much funny business while the bid is ongoing. Most of the emotion gets displayed when the winning bid decision has been made,” he said.