Blog 26 - Bid Qualification: Making Smarter Decisions with SCOTSMAN
The blog this week is from Jeremy
Bid Qualification: Making Smarter Decisions with SCOTSMAN
In the world of bidding, qualification is everything. It’s the gatekeeper between your team and the opportunities you pursue — and getting it right can mean the difference between winning work and wasting effort.
Why Qualification Matters
Many organisations fall into the trap of chasing every opportunity. The result? Burned-out teams, diluted win rates, and missed chances to focus on bids you could actually win. Good qualification is about discipline. It’s about saying “no” more often — and saying “yes” only when the odds are in your favour.
What Does Good Qualification Look Like?
A robust qualification process is structured, honest, repeatable and collaborative. It should consider:
Strategic fit with your business goals
Your ability to deliver the solution
The competitive landscape
The client’s readiness to buy
The commercial viability of the opportunity
It’s not just about ticking boxes — it’s about making informed investment decisions that align with your growth strategy.
Introducing SCOTSMAN
One of the most widely used qualification frameworks is SCOTSMAN. It helps teams assess opportunities across eight key dimensions:
Solution – Can you deliver what the client needs?
Competition – Who else is bidding, and how do you compare?
Originality – Is your offer differentiated?
Timescales – Can you meet the client’s deadlines?
Size – Is the opportunity worth the effort?
Money – Is there a budget, and is it viable?
Authority – Are you engaging with decision-makers?
Need – Is there a genuine, urgent requirement?
SCOTSMAN brings clarity to complex decisions and helps teams avoid emotional or reactive bidding.
A Practical Tool from Altura
To help you apply SCOTSMAN in your own organisation, Altura offers a free downloadable template that guides you through each element of the framework. You can access it here. It’s a simple yet powerful tool to support consistent qualification conversations.
Final Thoughts
Bid qualification isn’t just a step in the process — it’s a strategic capability. By using frameworks like SCOTSMAN and tools like the Alturas template, you can make smarter decisions, protect your resources, and improve your win rates.
If you’d like support refining your qualification process, get in touch with us here. We’d love to help.
Other Resources
We’re on a mission to help companies like yours win more work.
Here are some other free resources that should help you too. Feel also free to share them with friends and colleagues:
Bid Writing Training - Learn to write winning tenders here.
Writing Crown Commercial Services Bids - Learn to tackle the challenges of writing CCS tenders here.
The Bid Toolkit - We make winning simple.
Our free work winning Podcast, the Red Review, can be found here.
You can also follow Jeremy on LinkedIn for hints, tips and insights here.
100% Typo Guarantee—Our blog posts are free-range. It was hand-crafted with love and sent out unfiltered. There was no review queue, no editorial process, no post-post revisions. Therefore, I can pretty much guarantee that there is some sort of typo or grammatical error or literary snafu. Got a business to run and a four year old to Dad. Sorry.