Improved technical summaries, merge information from multiple sources, and convey insights in technical proposals.
CHALLENGES
The Global Proposal Management team is required to interpret the customer information provided by the sales team and merge that with technical details from multiple sources into a compelling proposal, often with a defined RFP structure.
This team creates the summary statement and assembles information into a coherent proposal. The information is highly technical and sourced from various areas. This team summarizes the value of Workday's technology. Additionally, this team often writes the email that conveys the proposal.
Proposals lacked a coherent narrative. Technical information was difficult for non-technical readers to follow, and the key benefits were sometimes not obvious. This team also had to merge large pieces of data and shrink it from ten pages to two pages, which required strong extraction skills.
SOLUTIONS
Instruction customized our existing Proposal Writing Course for Workday’s Global Proposal Management Team, focusing on proposals that communicate technical solutions.
Through virtual instruction, writing exercises, and demo documents, participants learned a six-step process to plan, draft, and refine proposal content and executive summaries. The training emphasized audience needs, clear objectives, and information mapping to help the team communicate complex solutions clearly and develop proposals more efficiently and consistently.
Outcomes
Expected writing time savings of over 20%
Participants anticipated saving an average of 21% of their writing time by applying the planning frameworks and structured writing process learned in training.
Stronger proposal and executive summary writing skills
After training, 100% of participants rated their writing skills as strong or expert, compared with 37.5% before training. Participants reported greater awareness of their audience, purpose, and intended message.
A consistent process across proposal projects
The team gained a shared six-step process for planning, drafting, and refining proposals. Participants identified this structured approach as a way to improve consistency across writing projects and better meet sales teams’ expectations.