Infrastructures

Ingredients

• Describe your organization, staffing, tools, and resources for:
  • Human Resources
  • Accounting/Finance
  • Payroll
  • Contracts
  • Legal
  • Information Technology
  • Call center
  • Shipping/Receiving
• How will the customer benefit from the support each can provide to the project?

Approaches

Corporate infrastructures are assets that may be worth pointing out to your clients, especially when they differentiate your proposal from the competition.  When a particular project will rely on your infrastructures, you can describe them to make the case that you have thought through the needs of the project and offer an integrated solution.  If you are a large business, it may not be newsworthy that you have dedicated human resources staff.  However, if you are a small business, it may reinforce the credibility of your claims regarding being able to staff a large project.

When describing your infrastructures, it is important to do more than simply identify them.  You should describe how the client will benefit from your having them in place.  A Human Resources department may enable you to do a better job of recruiting and retaining staff.   Your accounting system may enable you to ensure accurate invoicing.  In-house legal counsel may enable you to streamline union negotiations.

Infrastructures also lend themselves to illustration.  You can use a simple organization chart, you can show a pyramid with the project supported by the infrastructures, or you can use a pie chart to show that the combination of infrastructures plus the project team are required to deliver a total solution.