Responding to a request for proposal
A request for proposal is how a pharmaceutical client puts a piece of work out to bid, and responding to one is a critical function of a medical communications agency that can be new and sometimes daunting for a trainee writer. The buyer's side of the same process is in choosing a medical writing service provider, the field the bidding happens in is medical communications, the equivalent for a practice of one is finding and keeping freelance clients, and what follows once the work is won is managing a client project.
How the bidding works
The advice on bidding comes from a journal article of June 2016, written for trainee writers by a medical writer who had then worked at a medical communications agency for about a year. The request for proposal process is broadly a form of bidding in which the client invites submissions from potential vendors, such as medical communications agencies, relating to undertaking a piece of business. After submitting a proposal, agencies are then usually called to pitch for the business, although a proposal can also be sent electronically, for example as a slide deck, or the process conducted over the telephone. The June 2016 issue of Medical Writing (volume 25, number 2, on medical communication) that printed the article was admitted from an existing Markdown conversion without content repair, and the conversion's recorded limitations include page headers and footers interleaved with the text and broken ligatures.
Procurement staff want timely and robust information from agencies but request it with what agency leaders call unjustified variation, and although client-specific requests are justified, some standardisation of the request-for-information and request-for-proposal process could give procurement responses that are comparable across agencies and across time, with agencies collecting data to meet those standards.
Why trainee writers are drawn into business development
Responding to a request for proposal is a critical function of working in medical communications, but it can be a new and sometimes daunting area for trainee writers, who may be increasingly called on to engage in business development as agencies become increasingly meritocratic. Though new to medical communications, such writers tend to have scientific expertise and experience in relevant therapy areas, which is attractive both to their agency and to the pharmaceutical companies that are its clients. Being asked by the agency to take part in a bid is likely to mean that the writer has relevant experience in the therapy area in question: a trainee asked to help bid for publication planning work on a new cardiovascular drug may, for example, have a PhD in cardiac physiology.
What the request documentation is read for
Academic experience of the therapy area helps the writer understand the scope and background of the request and puts the writer in a position to add value to the agency's response. The request documentation should be read to understand the needs of the audience: a client is unlikely to want a full explanation of the pharmacokinetics of a compound it has itself spent much time and money developing. Companies may instead place higher emphasis on the creativity and innovation that a partnership with the agency can offer them, and in this context thinking outside the box can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.
What the bid team offers a new writer
In most medical communications agencies, trainee writers work with senior writers every day, and that foundation of strong teamwork is critical to a bid. Senior writers may have worked with the client in question and can advise on what to expect, and they are likely to have been involved in business development before. A bid can also bring a writer together with colleagues they do not work with day to day, which is a crucial opportunity to cultivate working relationships outside the usual realm, especially in larger agencies, which may have specialist creative and market research departments that are called on during the process. Seeing how these different business functions interact to win new business can be especially illuminating for a new writer.
How a new writer takes part in the pitch
A trainee writer taking part in a pitch for the first time will probably feel a mix of emotions, including pride and fear. The writer should understand their role in the pitch and raise anything they feel uncomfortable with immediately, because discomfort in the pitch serves neither the writer nor the agency: it comes across to the client and harms the chances of winning the business. More experienced members of the team can then guide the practicalities of the pitch and the best way of presenting the proposal. The writer has most likely been asked to take part because of experience in the therapy area, and clients will often see the new writer as the therapy area expert, which should bolster the writer's confidence during the pitch.
The pitch should address the project brief, but it is also an opportunity for the writer and the client to meet and gain a first understanding of how their personalities may or may not work together. Trainee writers should therefore remain relaxed and friendly and not get bogged down in the scientific and technical information being presented, and they may be surprised by how much winning new business is about personality, and not necessarily the level of complex scientific knowledge or technical prowess with Microsoft PowerPoint.
What follows the client's decision
Winning the business begins the project itself, which comes with its own set of challenges, among them cultivating a strong working relationship with the client. An unsuccessful bid is understandably disappointing after the time and effort invested, but it should not be taken too personally: for a trainee writer taking part for the first time, the process will have been a learning experience that improves the writer's standing in the agency.
Where possible, feedback on the client's decision should always be sought, because objective appraisals often differ from people's own perceptions of how they performed. Over time that feedback shows trends in the attributes of successful vendors and gives insight into the procurement ethos of different clients, which helps in the next bid.