Improving Sales Proposals Using the Microsoft Office System

Time-consuming processes: Proposals teams spend significant time searching for and re-creating content, assigning and coordinating tasks, and sharing documents. These processes are often inefficient and can lead to slow response times and missed deadlines.

Erroneous, outdated, or ineffective content: Proposals teams need current and accurate content, but locating approved and proven content can be difficult, whether it’s from past proposals, recent industry regulatory documents, or company databases.

Time wasted on low-value opportunities: Requests for proposals are not effectively evaluated up front to ensure that sales teams focus on the projects that will yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

Difficulty tracking and managing project status: In the absence of an easy-to-use central access point to store and share proposals securely, teams usually manage proposals projects through e-mail, which can lead to long review cycles and confusion about which version of the proposal is the latest.

Need to switch between applications: Proposals authors often need to switch between applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and line-of-business applications such as customer resource management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The need to work in multiple applications can be frustrating, confusing, and time-consuming.

Streamline the proposal process by eliminating the need to manually initiate, author, and assemble proposals.

Ensure high quality by creating a content library that proposals authors can use to search for, view, and import content from successful proposals. A content library also provides a single location for maintaining and retrieving the latest approved and standardized content and data.

Compare opportunities by using Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 to analyze the costs and benefits of potential projects to determine which have the highest ROI.

Help teams meet deadlines by setting up Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies sites to share and store documents, manage roles and responsibilities, assign tasks, track status, facilitate collaboration among team members, and decrease the number of review cycles.

Speed up content creation by using the Office Word 2003 task pane to perform all operations within a single application, including accessing content and sending notifications to team members.

Decreasing proposal turnaround time by 20 to 50 percent: Eliminate repetitive manual tasks; reduce time required to find and reuse the best information from company databases; prevent the need for proposals authors to switch between applications; use a collaborative portal to decrease the number of handoffs between authors.

Reducing costs by more effectively deploying resources: Deploy fewer resources in a streamlined proposals development process; avoid duplication of efforts by retaining critical expertise; rapidly integrate the solution with deployed Microsoft technologies.

Growing revenues by increasing win rate and participation: Create highly compelling, accurate, and up-to-date proposals; submit a greater number of proposals with fewer resources; focus efforts on the most promising leads based on systematic evaluation of risk and return; author proposals compliant with your customer’s standards and government regulations.

NCMIC Insurance
Learn how NCMIC Insurance Company used the Microsoft Office System to increase productivity by 30 percent.