Dematic Solution Development Team
Summarizing technical information for proposals
CHALLENGES
Dematic's Solution Development team prepares the estimates and proposals, including pricing, for material handling system modernizations.
The team is made up of engineers and technical experts. Leadership found that most lacked the basics of documenting their solutions in a way that wins business.
Proposals had to convey complex technical solutions clearly and concisely to customers' decision makers, many of whom are not technical experts.
SOLUTIONS
Instructional Solutions customized its RFP Writing course for Dematic's annual team summit and delivered a five-hour onsite session in Scottsdale, Arizona, for more than 45 participants.
Before the training, participants submitted their own proposals and technical documentation, so every exercise was built on real Dematic writing.
The session covered a six-step process for planning and drafting proposals, analyzing the reader, summarizing technical information, storytelling, and syntax and grammar.
To make the training stick, managers received guidance on giving feedback on employee writing rather than rewriting it, and participants joined a live follow-up webinar on presenting visual data and avoiding costly punctuation ambiguity in technical details.
OUTCOMES
Three times as many rated their skills as advanced
After training, 75% of respondents rated their ability to summarize technical information for proposals as a major skill, compared with 25% before training.
Expected writing time savings of nearly 25%
Respondents anticipated saving an average of 24% of their writing time, and 62.5% expected to save 30%.
A shared standard for proposal writing
Participants identified a common process for analyzing the audience before writing and a shared writing standard to improve proposal quality across the team.