Proposals are not just about winning business. They also lay down the foundations for successful project outcomes for both the project team and the client. A project proposal should contain essential details regarding a project including its objectives, timeline, requirements, and the proposed solution for the project completion. 

Effective proposal development can help you streamline your project management system by steering you in the right direction. 

In this article, we are going to walk you through the most common challenges in proposal development and how you can overcome them with Proteus.

Challenges in Streamlining Proposal Development 

Lack of a Well-Established Process

Effective proposal development requires you to establish a solid framework that serves as the basis for the proposal development process across the company. The lack of a well-established process for proposal development is one of the biggest challenges that companies face. It leads to inconsistent proposal quality, and it affects uniformity as well which results in a deviation from the client-specified project scope.

Without a comprehensive framework, the entire process becomes chaotic: it is not uncommon for one team to write proposals in a completely different way from another team within the same company. This lack of consistency makes it hard to accurately estimate costs, timelines, and profit margins from one project to the next.

Meeting Deadlines

As a business owner, you are often required to develop proposals with a strict deadline. Proposals with short submission deadlines can be challenging for your teams to complete effectively. When you are developing from scratch, meeting deadlines with proposal creation can be quite difficult. 

This is what makes it essential to have a proposal template set in place for emergency situations. Having a proposal template enables you to develop and submit the proposal in a short amount o time. 

Insufficient Data

There might be situations where you don’t have enough information at your disposal to develop the proposal. This happens when your client is not sure about their requirements. The lack of essential data required to make the proposal can cause delays in the entire process.

A key solution to this problem is being able to easily access critical data you need to plan the required work. Having integrated databases streamlines this process. For example, proving your company’s experience by including relevant past experience, is simplified by using a searchable list. You can then use this database to enhance and continuously improve future projects or add to proposals.

Communication & Collaboration

The lack of an effective communication and collaboration channel between the organization and the client affects the proposal development process. Without proper communication, it can get quite hard for you to develop a proposal that meets client expectations. 

Proteus Proposal Builder: Advanced Proposal Development

Proteus is an advanced end-to-end project management system solution that offers you a wide range of interactive project management modules that you can use to manage your entire project from the planning stage through to completion.

The proposal builder module helps you efficiently create, manage, optimize, and filter the developed proposals. It is a great tool for project managers who are working on multiple project proposals at the same time. 

The proposal development features of Proteus enable you to develop accurate and error-free proposals that you can submit to your clients in a faster and more efficient way. 

How Can Proteus Proposal Builder Solve Proposal Development Challenges?

Streamline Proposal Creation

Proposal creation is the primary feature of the proteus proposal builder. You can use the proposal builder to create accurate project proposals based on a detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). 

The WBS holds important project details such as budget estimation, costs, resources requirements, deliverables, timelines, milestones, team, and ad hoc expenses. Projects are split into work packages, each with clearly defined scope, time frame, inputs, and deliverables, allowing you to oversee mini-projects that are in progress at the same time. There is no limit to the number of work packages you can include in your project.

Proposal Automation

Instead of using manual charts and spreadsheets, you can use the proposal builder to automate the proposal-building process. Integrated with Microsoft 365, the Proposal builder offers you built-in, document-ready graphs, GANTT charts, organograms, timelines, and custom tables that you can add when creating your proposal. 

Team Member Profile Display

Proteus proposal builder enables you to add a complete team member profile to the proposal including the CVs, photos, organograms, and other essential details. You can use this feature to showcase the project team that you are considering for the project. 

Proposal Template Customization

Proteus offers you the features to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft SharePoint. You can make changes to the proposal template, and they automatically get reflected in the file that you have saved in SharePoint. 

You can use the proposal builder to easily add details including the price, team, experience, and schedule to the saved files, without any hassle. This gives you complete control over your proposal templates. 

About Proteus Project Software

Xergy Group’s Proteus project management software is designed to work with your existing systems and to scale and evolve as your business grows. Created by project management leaders, for the diversified engineering consultancy sector, Proteus delivers an end-to-end work management software platform with detailed workflows from the early opportunity stage through to project delivery.

Proteus’ end-to-end project management software is a cloud-based system designed for businesses of all sizes to handle projects of unlimited complexity and is compliant with common project management frameworks and ISO standards. Each feature is aimed at making bottom-line improvements by improving utilisation, streamlining workflows, providing quick and efficient access to resources, and reducing overheads. Check out some of our client case studies to learn more about how Proteus makes a tangible difference.

How to get Proteus

We recommend getting setup on a free trial. Proteus operates under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. We recommend getting setup on a free trial. Proteus operates under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. We offer Enterprise packages and flexible pricing solutions: contact our team to learn more.

We designed Proteus to be simple, and that means you can get up and running on Proteus without an IT team or support from a programmer. You will want to spend a bit of time configuring the admin console so that you have everything set up to suit your company structure, but it’s very intuitive and you don’t need a PhD in IT. However, we want you to get the best out of what is a brilliantly powerful tool, so don’t hesitate to ask for our support. We have a team of product experts who are ready to help you with the configuration process, so get in touch today by filling out the form below: