Forty questions before the creative starts
A tender arrives with an exciting brief and a supplier questionnaire attached. Company registration details, three years of accounts, insurance levels, data protection approach, information security controls, business continuity, modern slavery statement, environmental policy, equality and diversity, sub-contractor management, references. The creative team starts thinking about ideas. The ops manager starts digging for last year's answers.
She finds three versions of the data protection answer in three past tenders, each slightly different. The insurance certificate on file has expired. Nobody is sure whether the information security answer mentions a tool the agency stopped using. The questionnaire takes days, and it is the least interesting part of the pitch.
Why every questionnaire starts from zero
- Past answers live in old tender folders, not in one maintained place.
- Each buyer words the same question differently, so copying needs rewriting.
- Supporting documents such as insurance certificates and policies expire or change.
- Nobody owns the wording, so answers drift and sometimes contradict each other across tenders.
- Questionnaires arrive as Word files, spreadsheets or portal forms with character limits.
The agency's facts change slowly, but they are gathered again every time, as if for the first time.
What the repeated effort costs
Senior time goes on paperwork instead of the creative response. Out-of-date answers or expired documents can disqualify a bid before anyone reads the ideas. Inconsistent answers across tenders are a risk if a buyer later compares them with what the agency actually does. Some agencies decline good tenders simply because they cannot face the questionnaire.
The answer library we build
- Past questionnaires are read and the recurring questions grouped by topic: company details, finance, insurance, data protection, security, continuity, sustainability, people policies, references.
- For each topic, one approved answer is written or chosen by the right person, with a short and a long version for character limits.
- Supporting documents are stored with their expiry dates, and the owner is reminded before they lapse.
- When a new questionnaire arrives, each question is matched to the library, and a language model such as Anthropic Claude or OpenAI drafts an answer using only the approved wording, adjusted to the buyer's phrasing.
- Questions with no good match are flagged for a person to answer, and their answer can be added to the library.
- The draft is produced in the buyer's format, whether a Word file, a spreadsheet or text ready to paste into a portal, and nothing is submitted without a person reviewing it.
| Topic | What the library holds |
|---|---|
| Company and finance | Registration details, accounts summary, contacts |
| Insurance | Cover types and certificates with expiry dates |
| Data protection and security | Approved description of what you actually do |
| Continuity | Plan summary and who owns it |
| Sustainability and people policies | Current policy documents and summaries |
| References | Approved referees and when they were last asked |
The library holds what your agency actually does and has approved. It does not invent policies or controls, and answers about security or data protection should be checked by whoever is responsible for them in your business.
The next tender
The questionnaire arrives and the ops manager runs it through the library. Most answers are drafted from approved wording, with documents attached and current. She spends her time on the few new questions and on checking the draft, not on searching old folders. The creative team gets her help earlier, and the bid goes in with consistent answers.
Does tender paperwork slow you down?
- Supplier questionnaires take longer than the creative response.
- Answers are copied from old tenders and rewritten each time.
- Insurance certificates or policies have been out of date on a bid.
- Different tenders contain different answers to the same question.
- You have declined tenders because of the paperwork.