In March 2020, Hudson worked with Scope Care Agency in London, a care firm bidding for a placement on the Northamptonshire Personal Care and Support Services dynamic purchasing system (DPS) for LGSS Procurement, in partnership with Northamptonshire County Council.
Scope Care required Hudson to complete, on their behalf, quality questions for their submission. This entailed a detailed breakdown of the company’s approach to meeting the required outcomes, training and performance management procedures and maintaining family unity, to name a few.
A key challenge on this contract was short-notice timescales; as such, we required a lot of information to complete the bid, and the timescales were short – less than two weeks. As such, a key point of contact from Hudson – Bid Writer, Alex – was appointed and oversaw an initial telephone call to retrieve such information. This was then recorded for future reference, with the required information noted down in a project-specific bid tracker for contingency purposes should Alex have been absent. Despite this, the work was still reviewed internally for spelling, punctuation, grammar and suitability for purpose, after which it was sent to Claire for a final client review prior to submission.
The issue of timescales is one that was primarily mitigated by the clear management of expectations and clarity in communication, with Claire as the key point of contact for Alex (himself, the Hudson lead) to ensure communications clearly stipulated when completed work was to be returned.
Moreover, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we also worked with the client to develop some up-to-date contingency policies to upload with their completed submission to demonstrate their proactive, forward-thinking attitude to the pandemic. This was drafted, reviewed internally and professionally designed by our internal Creative Team to ensure that it matched brand guidelines and accounted for the latest government guidance.
Despite the aforementioned challenges, the work was completed well in advance of the deadline and sent to the client, to their ultimate satisfaction. Indeed, following such a swift turnaround, Claire testified:
“Thank you so much for the service. We are really impressed with the service and writing that we received. We will definitely use your service in the future.” – Claire Mandimika, Director at Scope Care
Moreover, we successfully acquired Scope Care a place on the framework, to the value of approximately £6 million over 4 years, after which they have returned to us for further assistance, even in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and its substantial impact on business.
