Bids, Tenders and Proposals: Winning Business through Best Practice (Bids, Tenders & Proposals: Winning Business Through Best)

If you use business software such as Microsoft Office, you may well find that it meets adequately your design requirements for documents that are essentially text-based such as bids. But if you want a system with the flexibility to produce other business material too - project sheets, brochures, newsletters and so forth - you should consider investing in graphic design and publishing software like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, QuarkXPress or InDesign.

There are basic rules to observe, whatever software you use:

• Compare the presentation of your business documents against the standard of other material in your sector of work, including if possible the documents your competitors produce. Can you afford to look inferior?

• Do not underestimate the time and patience it may take to learn to use graphic design and publishing applications.

• Try not to be carried away by the luxuriant profusion of fonts, text sizes, line patterns, shapes, symbols, signs, shadings, colours, clipart images and other devices offered by graphics packages. About 99 per cent of these will be entirely inappropriate for bid documents.

• Software may include specimen layouts, style sheets and templates, but it cannot supply you with an eye for good design.