Join Matt Light and Georgina Ayilara as they explore the current state and future of capture in the UK, discussing practical ways to improve customer understanding, align teams and position organisations to win more business.
The Reality and Future of UK Capture
What is capture, and why is it becoming an essential part of successful business winning?
In this episode of the Optimize Podcast, Matt Light is joined by Georgina Ayilara, Head of Tendering at Cyclife UK and author of The Current State of UK Capture white paper. Together, they explore why capture should be viewed as a business-wide discipline rather than simply a pre-bid activity, and how organisations can improve their approach to positioning for opportunities before a tender is released.
Drawing on experience across organisations including Thales, Serco, Rolls-Royce, PwC and Boeing, Georgina shares practical advice on customer understanding, stakeholder engagement, capture strategy and the role AI can play in making capture more accessible.
Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction and welcome
01:20 – Georgina's career journey and how she discovered capture
06:10 – What capture really means and why it's about positioning, not pursuing, opportunities
09:20 – Why capture is often misunderstood in UK organisations
14:40 – Where capture begins in the business winning lifecycle
20:30 – The five principles of an effective capture strategy
30:45 – Why capture is about more than improving win rates
34:00 – Findings from The Current State of UK Capture white paper
39:00 – Engaging SMEs and stakeholders throughout the capture process
42:40 – The biggest surprises from the UK capture research
46:10 – How AI is changing capture and competitive research
49:00 – Practical steps to improve capture maturity
51:40 – Quick-fire questions and Georgina's advice for capture practitioners
In this episode, you'll learn
What capture is and where it fits within the business winning lifecycle
Why capture should begin before formal procurement starts
The five principles that underpin an effective capture strategy
How better collaboration improves capture and bid quality
Common misconceptions about capture and how to overcome them
How AI can support customer research and competitive analysis
Practical ways to build capture capability within your organisation
Key Takeaways
✔ Capture is about positioning for opportunities, not simply responding to them.
✔ Good capture starts with understanding the customer and their challenges.
✔ Capture is scalable and valuable for opportunities of all sizes—not just major bids.
✔ Better collaboration between business development, bid, technical and delivery teams leads to stronger outcomes.
✔ AI can help make capture more accessible by accelerating research and competitive analysis.
Featured Guests
Georgina Ayilara is Head of Tendering at Cyclife UK with more than a decade of experience in bidding and capture across organisations including Thales, Serco, Rolls-Royce, PwC and Boeing. She is also the author of The Current State of UK Capture white paper and a member of the APMP UK Capture Focus Group.
Resourced Mentioned
The Current State of UK Capture white paper
Connect
Follow Georgina Ayilara and Matt Light on LinkedIn for more insights on capture, business winning and bidding best practice.
Matt Light (00:00)
Hello, welcome to the Optimize podcast brought to you by Visible Thread. We're here in series five. I'm Matt Light, and today I'm being joined by Georgina Ayilara, who is the head of tendering at Cyclife UK. Thanks, Georgina, for being with us.
Georgina Ayilara (00:20)
Thank you for inviting me,
Matt Light (00:22)
Yeah, no problem at all. So we're gonna spend the time today talking to Georgina about capture and specifically capture from a UK perspective. Now, Georgina, as I said, is the head of tendering at Cyclif UK but has spent over ten years in bidding with loads of major organizations that many people are gonna be familiar with. So Thales, Serco
Rolls-Royce, PwC, Boeing, some great big names in there. Georgina's got a really keen focus on capture-led growth and shaping opportunities with customers pre-tender. And she's also recently authored a white paper in the space of capture called the current state of UK capture, which I'm hoping we're going to be able to talk about a little bit more, Georgina, as we go through. So really looking forward to that.
Georgina Ayilara (01:17)
Hmm, likewise.
Matt Light (01:18)
So I wanted to start just by talking a little bit about ⁓ your career and and particularly kind of your interest in the capture space. So you know that passion that you have for capture and that focus that you have on it in the bid process, just talk me through to start with. How how did that develop?
during your career? How did you find that specific passion for capture?
Georgina Ayilara (01:53)
Sounds like, how did we get here Matt?
Matt Light (01:54)
Exactly.
Georgina Ayilara (01:56)
Yeah, that's a very good question that I reflect on really. So for me, Capture started, or the interesting Capture started way before I even knew or heard of Capture in fairness. I know at university, I loved marketing, anything to do with customer needs and understanding the customer, voice of the customer. Just the idea really of delighting customers. I really love that and all my high scoring.
You always have your favorite assignments and tutors, don't you? And for me, was all marketing. It was something I could go in and remember and that's when you know you've got a passion for it. So during my time at university, I was also working and I did some customer churn projects at British Gas. So again, really looking at customer journey, all about understanding the customer. And I also did a placement at West African Airline on customer loyalty and funding.
⁓ And for me, I've always been fascinated to some point a lot more on services, or at least at start of my career, how services are packaged. It's all about experience, isn't it? And all that was really interesting for me. So then when left university and moved into industry, I went into project management. But I always found myself drawn by the front end part of the customer and commercial side of the organization.
And so was supporting, so it was at Thales and they were quite fortunate how I was positioned as in project management, but they joined up projects as well. They see the handover for bidding. And so at that time, bid team that I was supporting as the project side, a few of them fell sick. So that of course wasn't positive, I did step in to that bid team. And since then, I just found a love for bidding.
Matt Light (03:34)
Yeah.
Georgina Ayilara (03:52)
since then I've never left bidding after that busy period of stepping in when a few of the bid team were sick. So over to you mentioned the last, guess, especially at the very early stage of bidding, what really stood out to me was how much of the opportunity was won or lost before the proposal writing had ever started. So I was really...
pulled towards capture from the start really, understanding how organizations position themselves early, understanding customer needs, ensuring delight moments, I think will relate to all the customer touch points throughout the procurement and then contract delivery journey. for me, well, that is capture, isn't it? again, all that, the fact it led to customer growth and growth of the business and
Matt Light (04:40)
Yeah.
Georgina Ayilara (04:46)
All of that was just what I had a passion for. It's just naturally progressed from there really.
Matt Light (04:53)
Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean, you know, it's something that we should definitely all be thinking about a lot more, isn't it? In terms of that voice of the customer in in in our in our bids. But probably something actually that that we we don't.
Georgina Ayilara (05:08)
⁓ Yeah, that's it. That's it sadly, isn't it? It's always easy, as we know, with other pressures and especially the time pressure, isn't it? But it's definitely something we need to be focusing on. Even if it's just done simply, it's just a thought, isn't it? To the shape of thinking, the context of that.
Matt Light (05:29)
Yeah, absolutely. So obviously we're going to talk about capture throughout this time that we've got together, Georginia. But one of the things that I guess I've found, you know, particularly in doing the research and reading the white paper that you wrote that we'll touch on a little bit more later, is that there just seems to be so many kind of definitions or thoughts about what
Capture is. So for the purposes of this conversation, what's your kind of go to definition for for capture?
Georgina Ayilara (06:13)
So for me, is summarised by it's the difference between doing opportunity pursuit, pursuing opportunities and positioning for opportunities. So that's the sentence. I won't do a diplomatic, you know, going into a longer than a sentence. So it is the difference between opportunity pursuit and positioning for opportunities. So if we break that down a little bit.
The opportunity pursuit suggests we're chasing opportunities, it? Whereas for me, the capture is we're proactively positioning for opportunities and it's all those things that's done before bid is released and it's achieved through the understanding of the customer as we've spoken about just shaping of the opportunity in terms of our marketing efforts, what we do to help the customer shape and bring their
problems to procurement opportunities and that type of thing. And then how we align business internally to respond to those procurements once they come out. So that to me is a sentence or two on capture. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but it's probably worth noting for me, hopefully listeners have picked up on it already, it's organisation-wide, so it isn't just the
bidding activity and isn't just a pre-bidding activity. It goes right from the very start of the business life cycle, as it were. So whether that's marketing or business development and it spans right the way across to project delivery, still have that role in capture, know, still like meeting customer needs and feeding back customer insights.
Matt Light (07:58)
Do you know what? I what I love immediately, Georginia, is that's probably that's the the best defined and clearest articulation of capture I think I've ever heard. So I hope every I hope everyone has has really listened and and heard that. And yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I know we're gonna talk about it a little bit later, but as you say, capture is is definitely that business wide, isn't it? With that, I think we do need to
we need to know exactly how we fit into that as bidding people, don't we? ⁓ to make sure that we can articulate the value that we're we're adding in getting involved in those activities. And I know we're gonna touch on that later on.
Georgina Ayilara (08:42)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, everyone's got a role to play in it, haven't they?
Matt Light (08:47)
They do. So with all of the with all of those kind of you know other definitions flying around and the fact that you know people at the minute in the UK particularly do kind of see CATCHA in different ways. Why do you think there is that inconsistency at the moment? Why do you think CATCHA is this
sort of mystical, misunderstood thing in in organizations at the moment.
Georgina Ayilara (09:20)
I think there's a lot of so many different ways and interpretations of it, isn't there really? Yeah, I agree. think the white paper touches on quite two or three key areas. think really what jumps out to me is this whole thing that Amir touched on it before, you, Matt, that it's only for the big bids. It's only for like the major pursuits and it has to be, you know, the full capture that's 18 months look ahead and it's for multimillion pound deal.
Matt Light (09:25)
Yeah.
Georgina Ayilara (09:49)
When in reality, it's capture is scalable and the principles that we will be talking about today, understanding the customer, influencing, shaping our position as we go to market, knowing competition and that internal alignment or capability of a business to go forward and respond to procurement. All those things are scalable. They can all be done in small bits. They can be done by one person or the whole.
the whole team. So I think that's one of the big reasons. I remember being at some of the, fortunate enough to be at some of the APMP Capture Focus group events last year and just networking, talking to some of community and it's quite clear that Capture's misunderstood a lot, that it's for a bigger opportunity. Oh, it's not needed for the private sector, it's not needed for framework, not needed for sole source opportunities when actually...
good capture is for all of those. It's not just about the size of an opportunity. It's about, well, for me, applying that right level of thinking. So if it's a sole source opportunity, the customer could still say no. So we still need to bring all those principles of capture and sending the customer, how we position it, how we take in the best of our organization to that customer. Same for frameworks. It might be that we don't have to be the only one supplier because that's maybe
framework with five positions, but still we still need to win the opportunity and get a place on the framework. And of course, as we know, best map for the most competitive pursuits and the biggest value deals of course capture that definitely is in its place. So at least that's one of the key reasons for misunderstanding is it's for the big bids when actually it's for all really, if it's scalable. Secondly, I think the
captures also siloed, think is another reason why it's inconsistently applied. It's sales, it's business development, and it's pigeonholed in that. Whether it's a role or various roles, it's still pigeonholed in, oh, it's sales, it's a process. When actually it's a shared business winning discipline. As we said at start of our session, everyone has a role to play, whether that's operations or export.
had a really good career defining movement in Capture where export control have played a key part of a Capture strategy. Where project management have had a really key input in terms of shaping Capture and how we go to market. the fact that it's Capture siloed really doesn't help it to be applied because it relies on it really Capture at its best connects the whole business clearly. And I think thirdly, as we know,
And we've discussed that the time pressure, it feels like procurement, when rightly so, it depends on various industries. Fast procurement cycles are becoming more, we've got limited resources, we need to do more with less. I suppose that's another reason why I think our firm like Capture gets de-prioritised and the risk of becoming devalued when really it emphasises the need for Capture more really, made scalable. So that, yeah, my key.
reflections on that.
Matt Light (13:17)
Yeah, and and that resonates so hard, Georginia, and particularly that that last point. You know, it it is one of those parts of the wider holistic bid process that sometimes gets cut, like you said, because of time or resource, but it's probably the most important bit, isn't it? And we ⁓ yeah, we should absolutely not forget that.
Georgina Ayilara (13:41)
Yes, definitely.
Matt Light (13:45)
Brilliant. So look, we're gonna get into a bit more of the the the meat of things now, hopefully. And I think we're gonna touch on s three key areas. It would be great to understand a little bit more from you know the research that you've done for the white paper. What does good capture look like? Wha why does it really matter?
What are the challenges and the reality of the current state of it in the UK today? We've talked about that in a little bit already. And then, you know, what's the future and and how do we get there? How do we make the practice more more prevalent? So to start through that kind of roadmap.
Yeah, we you've alluded to it a little already, but we could look at a kind of procurement cycle and bidding cycle and and try and pin the tail on the donkey almost as to where we think capture capture really fits. Where do where do you think capture should really begin in in the work winning cycle and process?
Georgina Ayilara (15:00)
So personally, it starts right at the beginning of when a customer identifies a problem. So there's a strategic problem or there's a market problem, a customer problem, through our, or hopefully through an organization's marketing efforts or whatever that process is to understand, does market intel to understand what's going on in like customers context.
That's why we say understanding the customers, one of the key principles of capture. So as soon as there's a known problem to a customer, that for me is when capture starts. It's not just when the ITT is released. So capture for me doesn't start when the tender starts. I think we've seen it quite often, haven't we, the expression of, I guess, in public sector procurement.
an expression of interest or PQQ's released. that's sometimes the first time the team or the business have known about it. And then we kickstart solution development and Project Mat, all those like solutions that we then start developing. When I don't want to say, think we used to have in that, we don't want to be idealistic and say, well, if you start capture at that point, it's not worth it because of course it's still worth it.
But from an idealistic point of view and a best practice or what good looks like, capture would have ideally started before that expression of interest. ⁓ think probably worth pausing to try and relate it to a private sector opportunity. So ⁓ capture is for all, isn't it? So for me, if we're dealing with a business to business opportunity, that could be a business development member spoken to.
client and they asked for a quote or they've asked for a capability demonstration. So that's equivalent to a public sector opportunity and there's an EOI or PIN, that type of thing. wherever that is in the procurement process for business, business or private public sector, ideally, if Capture has been used, we would have known that opportunity was upcoming. We would have known the customer
challenges that that organization or the government are going through. Whether that's through research on the desktop, which will come on later, which AI will essentially help us with. Whether that's through supplier engagements for public sector or business development team members going to discuss things. Whatever that looks like, Capture would enable some awareness of that opportunity before its releases at formal procurement.
I like to think of capture as an ebb and a flow for some points. when capture's done well, noting that we're not abstract, that we have limited resources and there's other opportunities and we have to stick to budgets, et cetera, that an opportunity could...
Capture could be deployed right at the very start. We think that the customer in this sector might have a problem. There's some use cases that have been identified or news stories. It's been something through some workshop we've done in Capture. It may only be an hour workshop or four week workshop, whatever that looks like. We've identified this problem. We're going to start putting out marketing material, white papers or capability demonstrations proactively to help the customer set in that we're here.
And then as that then progresses, internally we'll do some qualification of the opportunity. And only when that has been identified as an opportunity that the business has agreed to, then we can deploy even more capture. So then it would, you know, the idea that it will flow more, you know, more effort. So it's scalable really to like the confidence that a business has in that opportunity.
So of course then by the time it becomes a formal procurement from a customer side, it's been ideally the bidder has been aware and been involved working on the side and co-creation, suppose ideally with the customer on their requirements, spec or whatever that looks like. So that's why I think like Capture really begins at the very start really.
as we've discussed, it, Matt? It's always, we don't want to remove the value of capture even when, you know, something's on a portal. So capture can still be of value content at that point. But of course it could be of less value because it's, guess, a diminishing return. think they call it, don't they? Not to get into finance. ⁓ But yeah, that's my take on it really. think it always has a place, I think it should be.
scalable and linked with the business case of an opportunity. So noting that it's like, guess we've only got limited resources and they need to be deployed where an opportunity can have a P win, percentage chance of winning really.
Matt Light (20:19)
fantastic, so much in there already, Georgina, that to be honest from a personal point of view, I'd not really thought of.
Georgina Ayilara (20:27)
Yeah, that's refreshing.
Matt Light (20:29)
I'm I'm gonna focus in on there. You talked about doing ⁓ workshops around the capture stage. So if I was running a capture workshop as as a bid professional and trying to, you know, create that sort of capture strategy for my organisation
Yeah, if I if I look at it a bit like a sort of recipe, if you like, what what are the key ingredients that I should be looking at making sure are in that capture strategy?
Georgina Ayilara (21:05)
Yeah, I like that Matt, I think it's good to know. I like to think maybe in this instance then, capture isn't like baking a cake. Because I feel like with baking, you have to be so precise, don't you, all the ingredients, it has to be timed. And it gets me quite overwhelmed with baking because I feel like if you have one inch out, there's no space for creativity, is there some points of the basis of baking, maybe after the icing that there is. that's my take.
Whereas with Capture, think there's a whole, as we've said, it's open to ⁓ so many, depending on resources and the context and all of that, it can be scalable and tailored. I think for me, there are five really key principles, key ingredients to a good Capture strategy. Of course, number one is that customer understanding. That is a given, isn't it? And that can be...
Ideally.
you know, well defined with all the functions that are brought into the solution or wherever we are in the process. guess if we're at that ITT stage and when you just start into about the opportunity, if we start to get into reactive bidding in that sense, if we've got customer understanding, we can still shape our solution and we can still be competitive. can have strong, strong approach that way. So customer understanding one.
definitely a key ingredient. And linked is that win strategy piece. So how are we going to win the deal? Of course, it'd be great if we could answer that question right from the start and we can mature that as we progress the opportunity. But of course, if that's something that, I'd say, just got something off the portal and we're developing a win strategy, let's have an hours workshop just to brainstorm what the customer's problems are.
what their pain points are, hot buttons are, even if that's from reading a desktop or if that's from a desktop study or if that's from some visit report, whatever the sole, let's just have that dedicated session to understand what the customer problems are and then looking at our solution, how are we going to win that and ideally, how is that positioned against the competition. win strategy and win things.
Another key ingredient for that great capture strategy. Number three, competitive awareness. So again, it could be an example, could be something that we've been following for some time with a key interesting term we use, don't mean bidding, ghosting the competition. I've had some funny looks over the years. Ghosting, what does that mean? But yeah, so if we ghost the competition.
Matt Light (23:51)
Yeah.
Georgina Ayilara (23:58)
We've had the opportunity to do that and that's been part of our capture effort to displace competition and that's really good. But if we've not had that privilege as it were, still looking at the portal, this is an opportunity. So who are the competitors for this top five and then maybe using our co-pilot or ChatGPT to just brainstorm some of those, know, wearing the hat of the competition.
what's their likely price point, what's their likely solution, how can we overcome that? That's a key ingredient for competitiveness. And before, commercial realism. This for me personally has been one of the most enjoyable awarding but challenging parts, I think, of capture, to understand where's that rate card that we need to put together. Trying to get a cash flow.
curve, developed with indicative submission before it's progressed kind of thing, trying to get just some view. It's all based on assumptions, but just having, making sure that what we're planning to capture is grounded with that commercial realism and also noting that that can also be our commercial solution. It's still something that can contribute to our win strategy. Perhaps we've
gathered some intel that our competition might not be as flexible as us in terms of accepting agencies or perhaps we could even, I think a really good capture strategy where we've been able to develop ahead of terms with a customer to get them to then reflect that into their procurement later on in the process.
think about that is again, it's a range isn't a spectrum of how far we can go with it. But yeah, commercial realism is another key ingredient. then number five, which is probably, if I dare say, for me the most challenging, which is organisational alignment. I think we spent many years ago, there's something that said, I think it was when I was in the role of a pursuit or capture. And they were saying about what percentage is your
role, really capture should be 90 % with your customer facing and then 10 % internal, where it actually became a risk of being so internally focused, trying to bring all of the internal, you know, all the functions and dynamics of all of that, rather than like, but based on the customer kind of For me, the internal and external.
functions so we can look outward at supply chain, making sure we've got all of that sorted ideally as a part of capture, whether that's just a note out to suppliers or a desktop study on what supply is capable, how can we partner and all of that, just based on a set of assumptions that we think our solution needs to be. Or in marketing, maybe we need to put out some LinkedIn posts to position ourselves and start, you
planting some seeds to the customer in that sense. And also internally, even resource management, trying to give the heads up of when bidding activity is likely to increase is again a part of Capture, isn't it? To make us be able to respond when the opportunity lands. So for me, lot of Capture plans focus heavily on activities and milestones, whereas for me the strongest Capture strategies and plans
You can look at them and just from the idea of a few minutes read, you could easily see why the customer would select us, why should we be the winner, why are we the answer to the customer's problems and hot buttons, et cetera. And I think that for me is, love it when Capture creates that internal alignment and decision-making earlier. So that, you know, that type of Capture plan is in existence. I think it just boosts.
It's quite difficult in our roles sometimes. I've heard people say herding cats or that guess like the stakeholder piece is really important. think the best captures I've led have been when we've got that capture plan where people can see that they've been brought into it, they've contributed to it. The capture strategy is easily, you know, we didn't go, oh yeah, the customer, we know how we're going to win this basically. And then morale and motivation is.
is that it's not just a list of activities which is a part of governance, how we're going to win, our position to win. I think lastly, what underpins all of that is the mindset shift, which is also needed for great capture. I'd almost see it as like a, it's the circle, isn't it, which covers all those five points.
So often we're led from a compliance perspective or process perspective, or this is our bid process and the customer must align with this. Whereas actually it's the customer that takes me back to one that's probably the key. One of the key exciting things you're proud of in your campaigns. And it is for an international customer
Big process wasn't set up for international, it was based on UK government. think that was one, it's for new customer, new solution, everyone knew about it. It's like the minds, we didn't get that at the time, but gradually, the mindset shift came that actually we can't just use that, we can't superimpose our process and put that on the customer procurement process.
I think at the time there few elements to it but we needed, the customer didn't know what they wanted, they knew the outcome they were looking for but they didn't know how to get there and using the UK government process, in your procurement processes, that was quite different because as you'll be aware usually there's some form of concept isn't there or something that goes out to industry whereas in international customer, government customer, they didn't have that.
So the key part of the capture and strategy was to have customer workshops to shape those requirements and help effectively put that, I guess, specification together. So that was a mindset shift and I think do it after having that as like a baseline, know, way forward. was then a new process that was created for, you know, international opportunities.
So yeah, it definitely took that mindset shift, which I think underpins and makes, can make those five points the most effective or can also start to impact them negatively if that mindset shift isn't there and
Matt Light (30:47)
So the mindset shift's really interesting, Georgina, that you've mentioned, because I think another assumption that people might make is that if you're properly invested in capture and you do it really, really well, you'll get pure win rate improvement as a result. Right? And I I don't I don't perceive that as wrong, but there must be
There must be something more than that. There must be some some more value and something else different that capture ads if you do it really well.
Georgina Ayilara (31:27)
Yeah, I agree with that one. think you're right, isn't it? feels like the win rate and that increase, we're very commercially driven, it's what's ⁓ the order intake and the revenue, that will increase. When actually, of course, that's definitely the case. But for me, I think the biggest shift really isn't just about the win rate. Of course, that's really important. But for me, it's about the better decision-making and the overall business efficiency that can come from.
good capture. of course, improve win rates, as you said, definitely there. But it's about those, you know, the smarter bid, no bid choices, which of course then have a domino effect, don't they? If we set up that as a way of working, then that'll benefit other opportunities. It's aligning across, sales and delivery and the technical functions, which I think is also another
just efficiency, it? been at the jointing group of the functions, when I think back to
the companies or the business units or teams where capture is fully employed, there has been a very strong solution focus quite early on in the life cycle. So it feels like quite a positive prophecy. Once you start doing it well, then just, the don't know if that just keeps rippling through. of course you've got those win rates all the way, but there's the efficiencies.
the solution piece and then it benefits of course delivery and how the outturn of a project and then of course the customer feedback and then it just domino, a positive domino effect goes on there. I think we've also got that firefighting, know, that's, I'll never forget the very early stages of my career, ⁓ the word firefighting came about and it's stuck with me ever since and it's still even more so true isn't it as we've progressed over the years, like there's so much reaction.
in firefighting and bidding, whereas through capture that can be reduced. So we've got the win rates, we've got efficiencies, ⁓ more integration across the business and joined up functions, but then less reactive firefighting and overall just less wasted effort really, clearer understanding of how we will win. And as I said, it's a ripple effect, it just becomes more more positive. for me, it's
good capture improves the decision quality. It's not just about the submission quality of our bids as well.
Matt Light (34:00)
And that internal alignment bit I think's really interesting and and moving on to to talk about the the white paper. So ⁓ the current state of capture that's available for anyone to ⁓ download by the way via the APMP UK website. One of you the internal alignment bit I think was one of the biggest challenges that you pulled out.
in the white paper and certainly the gap that maybe organizations perceive themselves as doing some of this stuff better than they actually do. what would you say are like the the top tips for ⁓ someone in an organization who wants to try and achieve that better internal alignment? How do we get our
stakeholders and our bidding SMEs really engaged with capture and and what we're trying to do.
Georgina Ayilara (35:00)
Yeah, that's a good one, Mark. It's very close to my heart, as we say, don't we, our profession. think you made me smile. One of my mentors, in fact, and you quite recently spoke about the unconscious incompetence that people have, which you've just touched on, isn't it, in terms of we know the value of capture, but then there's some kind of disconnect really.
Going back to a question, the stakeholders and SMEs and their engagement is pivotal ⁓ and it's all on the journey. for me, if capture is seen as a process or a governance step.
that just immediately is like disengaged people. The best captures I've been involved in is even if from a business perspective, it is a process and it is a governance step. It's how, as a team member in the capture team, how that could start to feel more than a process and making all team members, depending on if at the start and it's just one or two or if we're in a full capture team, we've got
15, 30 people working on the capture, it would get all of those as contributors influencing the way the capture goes and it starts to feel good and it really starts to alive really. So for me, the best capture is a shared journey. As we go along in capture, we turn information into knowledge and that knowledge then obviously becomes our intelligence to help us win.
So I really love some the best memories that Capture today have been where we'd actually even have, not to create a template, we'd have a knowledge log and it would start with assumptions. So it depends where we are in the process, but we'd start it with like, what are assumptions as like, we're newly formed Capture team or depending on where we are, what are our assumptions? And then we'd actively target those to turn and it's fine I'd encourage people to be upfront with assumptions and not encourage assumptions that's a good thing to have them because then as a team and as capture progresses we can shape and understand those, maybe take some off because they become knowledge but whatever happens to those assumptions we're really focusing on going on the journey as a team and turning that information.
Whether that's from the site visits or the chat GBT information, desktop study, whatever that input is, we're turning that information into knowledge as a team and that's what you could do. ⁓ And I found that works really well with, you so you'd have the, I don't know you remember the Edward DiBergno hats. I learnt of those quite a while ago now, many years ago, probably early start of my career, but it's always stuck with me in terms of doing the workshop.
we can wear the different hats of the solution hat, the competitor hat and how they perceive things or work through them. But yeah, using those in this instance, in the capture phase, again, it can be an hour or full week, whatever, as a budget, it just really helped to identify the knowledge in the team from the different perspectives to shape how we're going to win the deal.
And of course, as a result, that strengthens our solution and differentiation, and then improves customer outcomes because each of those touch points in the procurement process, whether that's a capability demonstration or a pitch or the actual proposal, we get there. All of those touch points are improved as a result of that knowledge that we've gained as a team and being on the journey to turn into intelligence. And that really, I've had feedback.
from people who have been a part of the Capture scene. It really helps to engage and bring people along because it's their contribution, it? It's not just being done to them, as it were. Capture, I think, in the past, some teams have said, oh, we feel like Capture's done to us, especially in business development, science or commercial. actually, Capture, at its best.
brings all of those people together and ideally as early as possible. One of the things I really loved about Capture is the fact it's collaborative and discussion led. And of course then based on that real customer context, it's not just a template as it were. So yeah, I think that teams feel genuinely involved. They're not just servicing a process then.
if they're involved in driving customer value, driving business results. Yeah, I think one of key reflections, have a team meeting and on the agenda, we've had customer intel and competitive intel, so that's just an example of how capture can simply be done, but we're just having, if we're aware of two or three competition for an opportunity, just...
asking the team, so how does this impact you, commercial perspective, how does it impact you, from a program perspective, how does it impact you. So it's quite an easy way of engaging everybody, bringing all the perspectives and embedding capital as business as usual really. And of course, go back to the key thing of turning that information into knowledge and then Intel, which we're all contributing to. It's quite exciting stuff really, what?
It's one thing that as I'm talking Matt I'm thinking it's actually quite an expensive ordeal as well.
Matt Light (40:51)
Well, yeah, quite. De yeah, definitely. I love that bit there, Georgine, of you saying that yeah we need to make sure that ⁓ our stakeholders and SMEs don't feel like it's being something that's done to them. I remember my first foray into trying to do capture a few years ago. and yeah, my business development
the head of business development, ⁓ turned round and said, Well, can we not do this? 'Cause it feels like you're telling my team how to do their jobs. ⁓ so yeah, you definitely don't want to start off your potential capture with that kind of tension, do you?
Georgina Ayilara (41:31)
No, we don't want that. Yeah, no, that's it. It feels like that captures the glue, it, that can draw that into our lives. It feels like there's so many, the BD, the on-contract project team that everyone has. As I've said, we don't want to be an ongoing record. It feels like everyone definitely has that role to play because everyone captures role to draw out that information and to shape it into something.
focus that is definitely a contribution rather than a being done to.
Matt Light (42:06)
Yeah, absolutely. The the work that that you put into the white paper, Georginia, in terms of the the research and then authoring it i is is amazing. You can see it come through. Were there was there anything in the research that you did for the paper that you went, ooh, that's genuinely surprising. I didn't think, you know
people would feel that way or that's not something that I would have recognised. Wha i w was there anything that kinda came out of that that did surprise you?
Georgina Ayilara (42:45)
I think the main thing is really being the, I guess going back to what you said, the
I guess from the mentor perspective saying about this incompetence, it's knowing that something is really valuable, then they're not seeing it through, that really surprised me. Some of the insights in the white paper have been drawn, as I mentioned, from the events that we did in the Capture Focus group last year. Like I really valuable conversations with
the APMP community. But it really came across the fact that everyone's really interested and aware of capture. But then there's definitely a disconnect between how that's applied and how quickly it can be ruled, whether that's by the process, or I guess the budget that they need to be reactive. So I think that was one of the biggest
I guess surprises as it were. The lack of integration as well, I think that was something that was surprising in terms of, as we've touched on, Capture spans all of the functions and it's just pigeonholed into a pre-bid activity. And then there's that, the traditional handover to bidding when actually Capture spans.
Of course it spans all of that. might be that bidding becomes the owner of an opportunity.
But the capture underpins all of that. So that was something. And then also I think the bid writing. So I've always had some really good conversations with some bid writers in the group. And we all agreed how much bid writing is an enabler, isn't it? Right at the start in terms of the proposal, like storyboarding.
the reviews that can happen. A lot of people I spoke to were drawn in late just to write a response. That was such an opportunity lost. That really stood out to me in terms of how much bid writers and also other SMEs in terms of the technical teams from research I've been doing on my own in of engineering, solution architects and all that.
They also feel to engage with too late when actually it of course would have been better to have had their involvement at the start.
Matt Light (45:14)
The bringing people in earlier piece, particularly as you said, the the bid writing, ⁓ is a is a really nice call out just because ⁓ another of our episodes in this series ⁓ is with a bid writer who is really keen on pushing themselves into the capture space. So there's ⁓ there's a lot there's a there's a nice little tie in there ⁓ for for people who are listening, who ⁓ go and listen to that one as well.
So let's bring it to to the future then, Georgina. And you mentioned earlier on AI, and it feels like we can't go through a conversation in bidding without talking about AI anymore. How do you see automation playing a part in capture? And for you, is it an opportunity or is it a risk?
Georgina Ayilara (46:10)
So we'll go with an opportunity. don't think that can be critical. think personally, have, I think as we all do, don't we, like professionally, I feel like there's something catching up to do when it comes to AI. ⁓ But yeah, definitely opportunity. think in terms of capture, what excites me the most with AI for capture is the fact
captures sometimes seen as this luxury, it? high budget, high outlay to do. So I think AI has a brilliant role in making it accessible for all, really. The ability to do some research in terms of like competition, you know.
I've done some work well before in terms of when you don't have the team, like five, six years ago, there'd be a full capture team of 30 people and each would have an input in the workshop. Whereas fast forward to today, that's not always possible. So the ability to do some, I guess, wargaming on companies and put that into, I don't know, Copilot or ChatGV2 or some AI tool.
to produce that as an output to then discuss as a smaller team, I think it's brilliant. It just makes it ⁓ accessible really in terms of, know, win strategy and win things. We'd have, well, not your thoughts on that, but we can take, we can spend a lot of time, can't we? Like as the input into that win strategy session, but from an AI perspective.
Matt Light (47:47)
Yeah.
Georgina Ayilara (47:51)
You know, being able to gather that quickly, you know, the information, the competitive analysis piece. That's another accessibility factor, isn't it, in terms of, you know, putting in, these are the competitive advice solution opportunity. What are their likely behaviors? think all that's really good, really exciting.
of course we need to check that it's true.
In principle, I think it's really exciting that there's so many activities in capture that everyone, from a full-on corporate to an SME, can engage in capture more effectively because of AI. think that's really exciting.
Matt Light (48:34)
And that definitely mirrors, Georgina, what I've heard at a visible thread event, no less. about about them saying ⁓ that one of the big strengths of AI in capture is that research piece and it enables you to do it much faster. So I'm glad you mentioned that as well.
Georgina Ayilara (48:55)
Yeah, impressively so.
Matt Light (48:59)
So to to round things off then, Georgina, you know, we we've talked quite a bit about where capture currently is in the UK. If for anyone sat in a a a big team or maybe even a capture role in an organisation now, thinking, you know, listening to this and thinking, Yeah, there's so much more that I can do here with this great insight.
What would you say the key changes are that bidders and capture practitioners can start to make to improve the maturity of capture in their organisations?
Georgina Ayilara (49:42)
Yeah, that's a really good one, isn't it, Matt? I think we can't fully cover in a few minutes, as it were. Scroll worthy, I think. For me, I always have to ground myself in reminding that it can be quite overwhelming, can't it, to think of all the exciting things capture can be. How do we get there? I ground myself in, we just start small.
So that's my go-to position. We use the success of, so I guess for an example, using those five principles that we mentioned at the start, the customer understanding, which strategy, competitive awareness, commercial realism and organisation alignment, slash internal capability to bid. We approach each of those.
in a small way. So whether that's as an example that customer understand it, having that workshop to understand the customer context for their problems and the solution, that's a win. And then using that as it progresses to what that meant for the proposal strategy and how we did the proposal maybe quicker or
you know, whatever benefits came from that, making sure that's used for a, guess like a lesson learned, know, as we know, lessons learned was always a key part of our bidding, it? So making sure that's known so that it can be fed into the next one. And then gradually there are more of an engagement factor, I feel. Yeah, so it's definitely starting small and focusing on.
each of the ingredients ⁓ one at a time. I helps break it into a piecemeal. I think the customer understanding underpins it.
Matt Light (51:26)
That's a really nice round off, Georgina. Thank you for that.
what we like to do kind of just to wrap up
on each of these, Georgina, is just do a real couple of quick fire questions at the end. Are you up for that?
Georgina Ayilara (51:41)
Hmm, yeah, yeah, good. Yeah, why not?
Matt Light (51:44)
Amazing. Okay. So first one then. When a bid lands and you've been part of the capture team, how do you know that you've done a really great job in capture?
Georgina Ayilara (51:58)
So there'd be no surprises or minimal surprises in terms of the ITT, maybe the customer spec or ideally T's and C's, but no surprises when that ITT drops really. The bid team are able to mobilize quickly and have a basis to work off, maybe even have a draft proposal. And when strategy and when things are validated from reading the tender document, as we know this is for us.
Matt Light (52:22)
Amazing.
Do you think there's a really common mistake that teams make in capture and if you could tell them to stop doing it right now, what what would it be?
Georgina Ayilara (52:33)
⁓ Stop seeing capture as a process ⁓ and guess stop seeing it as a sales only role.
Matt Light (52:42)
Nice like that. And then on the flip side of that, if you could pick just just just one key thing to leave people with today to say you should be doing that in capture right now, what would that be?
Georgina Ayilara (53:01)
talk about and understand your customer.
Matt Light (53:04)
Love it. What a way to round off. That's amazing.
Georgina, it's been really insightful. Thank you ever so much. I know that everybody listening is gonna have got so many takeaways from this. I think some of the key ones for me would definitely be, ⁓ you know, as you mentioned at the beginning, we have to see capture less about pursuing opportunities and more about being positioned well to win them.
I definitely learnt a lot about how we can take people along that journey and make sure that capture is a really key embedded part of what we do without making it too process heavy. And yeah, the piece about inviting AI in to be a key part of what we do with CATCH and using it for research, I think, is is a really, really great one as well.
Georgina Ayilara (54:00)
Great.
Matt Light (54:02)
For people who are listening, Georgina, if they want to learn any more about capture or if they want to get access to the white paper and have a have a really good read of that, where can they go to to find some more detail and some more resources?
Georgina Ayilara (54:22)
So the APMP website, we have a slot on there as a capture focus group. So it'd be great to access off there. There's also the capture focus group on LinkedIn. So it'd be brilliant for your teams to follow us. And there we hope to keep the conversation going in terms of all things capture. So yeah, those are the two. And capture, the white paper is accessible on both of those options.
Matt Light (54:53)
Amazing. And is there a follow up ⁓ or any follow-up planned on the white paper? Are there any future ones coming that we should also look out for?
Georgina Ayilara (55:03)
There is Matt, so there is a webinar which we'll be doing soon, details to be released on that. There's also the future of Capture, so we currently have the current state, we'll be working on this year the future of Capture and what that looks like, so that's really exciting.
Matt Light (55:24)
Amazing. It feels like there's a follow up podcast there.
Georgina Ayilara (55:27)
Yeah,
Matt Light (55:31)
Fantastic. Well, Georgina, look, thanks again ever so much. Really appreciate you giving us your time and insight for this. So thank
Georgina Ayilara (55:40)
Thank It's been enjoyable. Thank you for opportunity.
Matt Light (55:42)
And thank you everybody for listening. That's been the Optimised Podcast brought to you by Visible Thread and hope to see you again very soon.