Have you ever wondered if the process your utilizing for capture management is genuinely effective for your company’s success? Are you making appropriate decisions to position the company for growth? Is it truly process driven, or are you just lucky? If it is luck, most can agree that luck doesn’t last forever. And, let’s face it, luck is a terrible way to run a business.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’re not running a luck-driven organization and have put in the time and effort to develop a capture management process – how can you tell if your process is effective? And if you determine it isn’t effective, what can you do about it?
What Can Your Process Predict?
The first component you should examine to determine the effectiveness of your capture management process is reviewing the accuracy with which the process predicts future wins and losses. When you win an opportunity, are you exercising a lessons learned or a plus/delta review of the process you executed to win? Do you do the same for those that you lose?
Executing a crosswalk between the two will help you to identify trends in those decisions that led to a win vs. those that resulted in a loss. Incorporating those into your process moving forward will help increase the capture effectiveness.
Are You Winning More Than Losing?
Next, ask yourself the following question: “Are your capture executives winning more deals than they are losing?”
As you compare month-over-month or quarter-over-quarter outcomes, an upward trend in wins is a good indication of increased effectiveness. But are you able to attribute that trend to your process? For instance, do you know what your capture executives are doing at all times? Are all of the steps followed throughout the capture management process a) identical, b) repeatable and c) documented? If not, why? You are challenged to ensure the effectiveness of your process if you can’t confirm that every member of the capture team consistently follows it. Does your current software track your capture team activity and measure their individual success?
Communication Is Key
A fundamental way to ensure that every member is following the exact same process is to have software that creates this repeatable process, is collaborative and enterprise-wide and creates regular communication. Are your capture executives communicating with each other on a regular basis? Are regularly scheduled meetings held specifically for the purpose of discussing strategy and processes? If one of your executives identifies a varied step in the process that has brought them more success are they sharing it with others? By scheduling strategy meetings, working sessions, off-site retreats or simply utilizing knowledge share platforms, capture executives should be sharing with one another tidbits that can maximize success for everyone.
Final Thought
Though the efficacy of your capture management process can be assessed on a regular basis, without continuous process improvement and using a collaborative software solution, you will see a natural degradation over time. Asking yourself the questions above will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of your current process, in addition to helping you make periodic adjustments and improvements to it over time.
And while your capture management process should be comfortable for your capture personnel, in today’s marketplace you cannot afford for it to remain stagnant.
