Mandore Academy

27/08/2026

The biggest mistake we make in bid management is assuming that the bid starts when the tender arrives.

It doesn’t.

And the second mistake is assuming that bid management is principally about managing the production of a document.

It isn’t that either.

The Mandore Bid Mastery Model is a proven approach I have developed and refined over 20 years of winning bids. It captures what I have learned about the difference between simply managing a tender response and positioning to win. It treats winning bids as commercial strategy programmes, not writing exercises.

There are eleven stages in the model, and something rather important happens when you look at where writing appears.

It’s Stage 9 in the Mandore Bid Mastery Model.

Eleven stages may seem a lot, but each contributes to creating the conditions for a winning bid. They are not necessarily sequential; some will overlap or run concurrently, and insight gained at one stage may cause us to revisit another. What matters is that none of the thinking is overlooked.

Bid management is often treated as an administrative or project management role. Of course, good organisation, attention to detail and project management matter.

But they are hygiene factors.

Do them badly and they can certainly lose you a bid. Do them adequately and they rarely give the customer a reason to choose you.

Winning comes from somewhere else.

It comes from understanding the customer, understanding the competition, identifying what the customer really needs, developing a strategy to win and designing a solution that gives them a compelling reason to choose you.

Then you write the bid.

And in an age when AI can help almost anyone produce competent prose, that distinction matters more than ever.

Mandore Academy is where I share and develop approaches like this with bid professionals who want to move beyond managing responses and become better at winning.

Strategy first. Writing last.

26/08/2026

Congratulations on losing that bid.

At least you pitched up and had a go.

Now comes the important bit.

What are you going to learn from it?

I don’t study losing because I lose a lot. I study losing because I want to keep winning.

Over the years, I’ve worked with organisations with highly evolved propositions and mature bid processes, and others that were starting with virtually nothing.

And, of course, I’ve lost bids.

I’ve lost on price. I’ve lost bids we probably shouldn’t have pursued in the first place. I’ve lost because competitors were better positioned. And I’ve lost bids where, with hindsight, the warning signs were there long before the tender arrived.

Every one taught me something.

For a smaller organisation, the lesson might simply be that we weren’t ready. For a larger organisation, it might be more uncomfortable: perhaps we didn’t understand the customer as well as we thought we did.

That’s why I regard lessons learnt sessions as fundamental to good bidding.

They can be a desk-based review or a workshop involving the wider team. The format matters less than the quality of the questions you ask.

Here’s one I use:

What did we believe needed to be true for us to win — and which of those things turned out not to be true?

That question takes you beyond the evaluation scores.

Did we really understand what mattered to the customer?

Were our assumptions supported by evidence?

Did we underestimate a competitor?

Was our proposition genuinely differentiated?

Did we recognise the warning signs and choose to ignore them?

Should we have been bidding at all?

A lost bid is evidence.

It has just tested your understanding of the customer, the competition, the market, your proposition and your ability to execute.

Don’t waste that evidence by filing the scores, blaming the price and rushing enthusiastically into the next tender.

Because identifying a lesson isn’t the same as learning it.

You’ve learnt it when it changes what you do next time.

That’s the purpose of a lessons learnt session.

Not to explain the last result.

To improve the next one.

This is exactly the kind of practical thinking we explore in Mandore Academy — a community for bid professionals who want to get better at the things that actually win bids, not simply the mechanics of submitting them.

11/08/2026

I’ve been busy again… 📘

I’ve just updated my Procurement Act 2023 Playbook to incorporate the Government’s August announcements and what they mean for organisations bidding for public-sector work.

This isn’t intended to be another explanation of the legislation.

There’s plenty of that already.

Instead, I’ve tried to answer the more practical question:

What does the Procurement Act actually mean if you’re trying to win government contracts?

The Playbook looks at the new procurement regime from the supplier’s perspective and translates the changes into practical implications for bidding, frameworks, social value, supplier performance and positioning for public-sector opportunities.

And with the Government’s latest announcements signalling further changes in how it intends to buy — including the increased emphasis on social value — I’ve updated the Playbook accordingly.

If you work with public-sector contracts, bid for government work, or simply want to understand what is changing, hopefully you’ll find it useful.

You can download a copy here:
https://www.mandoreacademy.com/c/sector-playbooks-04c3d5/procurment-act-2023

Please feel free to share it with anyone who might find it useful.

17/07/2026

The Profession Deserves Better

For years I've heard the same comments.

"Nobody ever taught me this."

"I wish I'd known that ten years ago."

"We always seem to learn after we've lost."

The bid profession has grown enormously over the past two decades, but professional development hasn't always kept pace.

Today we're expected to understand procurement, commercial strategy, customer psychology, proposal writing, AI, social value, project management and stakeholder engagement.

That's a lot to learn.

The best bid professionals aren't developed simply by reading about the profession. They're developed through experience, reflection, collaboration and continuous learning.

That's the vision behind Mandore Academy.

Not simply to help people win more bids.

To help raise the standard of the profession itself.

Join. Learn. Apply. Win.

🌐 Consultancy: www.mandore.co.uk

🎓 Community & Learning: www.mandoreacademy.com

16/07/2026

Why I Built Mandore Academy

Over the past twenty years, I've worked alongside some exceptionally talented bid, proposal and business development professionals.

One thing has always struck me.

Most of us learned the profession the hard way.

We learned through difficult deadlines, painful losses, demanding customers, generous colleagues and years of accumulated experience. The knowledge was there—but it was rarely organised, rarely shared and often disappeared when people changed jobs.

I wanted to create the professional community I wish had existed when I started.

A place where practitioners can learn from one another, share ideas, challenge thinking, develop practical skills and continue improving throughout their careers.

Not another social media group.

Not another collection of videos.

A genuine community built by practitioners, for practitioners.

Because the profession is changing faster than ever before, and I don't believe anyone should have to navigate that journey alone.

Join. Learn. Apply. Win.

🌐 Consultancy: www.mandore.co.uk

🎓 Community & Learning: www.mandoreacademy.com

15/07/2026

The Best Ideas Never Came from a Textbook

Looking back over more than thirty years in bidding, I don't think the most valuable lessons came from courses or manuals.

They came from customers.

They came from evaluators.

They came from winning.

More often than not, they came from losing.

Every difficult review, every challenging client and every unsuccessful bid taught me something I carried into the next opportunity.

Experience matters.

Sharing that experience matters even more.
That's the principle behind Mandore Academy.

Join. Learn. Apply. Win.

🌐 Consultancy: www.mandore.co.uk
🎓 Community & Learning: www.mandoreacademy.com

14/07/2026

Winning Has Never Been More Challenging

Over the past few months I've been working on a number of live bids and talking to clients across different sectors.

One thing is becoming increasingly clear.

Customers expect more.

Competition is more intense.

Evidence matters more than promises.

Artificial Intelligence is changing how we work.

Winning today requires far more than writing good responses. It requires customer understanding, commercial awareness, collaboration and continuous learning.

The profession is changing.

The most successful professionals will be those who continue to adapt.

Join. Learn. Apply. Win.

🌐 Consultancy: www.mandore.co.uk
🎓 Community & Learning: www.mandoreacademy.com

13/07/2026

Most Bid Professionals Learn the Hard Way

Nobody teaches you how to become a great bid professional.

Most of us learn through missed deadlines, lost bids, difficult reviews and generous colleagues willing to share what they've learned.

Knowledge is often passed down informally, which means mistakes are repeated, opportunities are missed and valuable experience is easily lost.

I believe there is a better way.

That's why I created Mandore Academy: a community where professionals can learn from one another, develop practical skills and continuously improve.

Because the best bid professionals never stop learning.

Join. Learn. Apply. Win.

🌐 Consultancy: www.mandore.co.uk
🎓 Community & Learning: www.mandoreacademy.com

25/06/2026

The Procurement Act isn't just changing procurement. It's changing behaviour.

Over the past 18 months, I've noticed a number of shifts across public sector procurement:

• Commissioners engaging earlier with suppliers
• Greater emphasis on evidence and performance
• More focus on social value and outcomes
• Increasing use of flexible procurement approaches
• Greater transparency around decisions and contract performance
• More procurements being paused, redesigned or cancelled

Many discussions about the Procurement Act focus on procedures, notices and legal compliance.

I think the bigger story is what the legislation is doing to commissioner behaviour.

Increasingly, public procurement is becoming less about who can write the best bid and more about who can provide the strongest evidence that they can deliver.

That's why I've written The Procurement Act Playbook – a practical guide for suppliers trying to understand what the new procurement landscape means for winning contracts.

You can download a free copy here:

👉 https://www.mandoreacademy.com/c/sector-playbooks-04c3d5/procurment-act-2023

I'd be interested to hear what changes others are seeing in the market.

How to Win More Public Sector Contracts in the New Procurement Landscape Introduction Most organisations do not spend much time thinking about procurement law. Their attention is usually focused elsewhere. Customers need serving. Staff need recruiti...

10/06/2026

Neo-fascism does not arrive all at once. It advances by degrees.

First, support for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is removed. Then support for asylum seekers is withdrawn. LGBT flags are banned from public buildings. Councils pull support from Pride events. Transgender people are portrayed as a threat to women and children. Migrants are blamed for social problems.

Street demonstrations targeting minorities are excused, defended, or encouraged.

Each step is presented as reasonable. Each target is told they are not losing rights, only "special treatment".

But the pattern is clear. Neo-fascist movements do not begin by attacking everyone. They begin by isolating minorities one at a time, normalising exclusion, and teaching the wider public not to care.

Pride, DEI, asylum seekers, migrants and trans people are not separate issues. They are connected by a politics that divides society into those who belong and those who do not.

History teaches us where that road leads.

The question is not whether we recognise the warning signs.

The question is: what are you doing about them?