What’s the difference

When conducting research in preparation for a bid, it’s easy to fall into the information versus intelligence trap. But what’s the difference?

Information is just data, sometimes pulled together into a narrative. Information can help answer questions you might have in a tendering process, such as:

• What is the patient journey in the current service?
• What’s our competitors’ service model?
• How many staff would we need to employ to deliver this service?

 
Information can be useful for planning. However, if you want to put yourself into a competitive position to win contracts, you need to transform information into intelligence.

So What?

A question we always ask at HealthBid is “so what?”. By asking “so what?”, you can think more deeply about information, turning it into intelligence.

• The patient journey in the current service is long and complex. So what?
• Our competitor’s service model has remained unchanged throughout the ten years of their incumbency. So what?
• If successful, we would need to recruit a number equivalent to 40% of our current workforce to staff this contract. So what?

 
“So what?” is how you can transform information into intelligence.

Intelligence

Intelligence is data, woven into narratives as information, then finally scrutinised and interrogated to drive decisions and guide planning. Intelligence can make the difference between a compliant bid and a winning bid.

How Can HealthBid Help?

We specialise in turning information into intelligence. If you’d like to improve your intelligence pre-bid, explore our Plan offer – whether it’s competitor analysis, gap analysis, or commissioner research, we can improve your information resources and provide you with targeted, focussed actions to improve your chances of winning your next bid.

Turning information into intelligence is just one of many things that set the HealthBid approach apart.

Written by Meg House, Senior Plan Manager 

To find out how our team could support you with your next tender, contact info@healthbid.co.uk or call us on 0113 479 0803.