Corporate Excellence 2019

10 CORPORATE VISION / Global Excellence 2019 , Oct19002 28 Issue 1 2020 360 The Microsoft Proposal Experts Proposals make lasting impressions. A polished, well-formatted proposal conveys competence, expertise, and professionalism. A sloppy, inconsistent proposal communicates the opposite. Knowing how to leverageMicrosoft Office is key in ensuring that your proposal makes the kind of great impression your company deserves. When it comes to winning proposals, Expedience Software is the proposal industry’s recognizedMicrosoft ® Word expert. The company’s proposal automation tool is 100% designed and developed in nativeWord, providing a library of optimized content directly inMicrosoft Word, with automation to support custom formatting, Excel and PowerPoint integration, and proposal assembly. Following the firm’s recognition as theMost Innovative inWord Automation Tools, 2019, we delve into why Expedience is synonymous withMicrosoft-delivered proposal excellence. Expedience Software’s core mission is to help organizations enhance, automate, and evolve their proposals and proposal creation processes. Founded by proposal industry veterans, Expedience has assisted thousands of customers across many industries to solve the challenges associated with these critical business development documents to help them win more business. The company’s software is frequently cited as being the easiest to use and most effective proposal automation software on the market today. Why Word? Expedience Founder and CEO Melissa Mabon and her team steadfastly believe Microsoft is the only place where their software should play, even as a plethora of companies push cloud-only automation solutions. “That’s where proposal people live,” explains Mabon, noting that Microsoft allows proposal teams to take advantage of the best aspects of desktop and cloud environments. “It’s becoming more and more seamless – the difference between on-premise and cloud is being minimalized – because we have synced files in Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and other collaboration platforms. You can have all your SharePoint files protected on SharePoint but access them just like a folder on your desktop. That’s the direction the market is going – there will be this ever- seamless connection between the speed and ease of the desktop with the power and reach of the cloud/internet,” she says. Style Mastery “For better or worse, a proposal’s ‘look’ often defines how a prospect views your sales team and your company,” notes Mabon. “It’s the first piece of proof that you pay attention to detail, understand how to communicate clearly, and that you value customers’ time.” Expedience’s styles guru, Diane Loudenback, VP of Client Services, agrees. She frequently works with writers and proposal managers who are laser-focused on proposal quality. Expedience has integrated and super-charged Word Styles, putting the proposal professional firmly in the driver’s seat. Expedience styles management makes formatting a document quick and easy by centralizing core proposal elements such as headers, footers, logos, and tables. Using Styles, writers, and other bid team members can create beautiful and consistent proposal documents that set their organization apart from the competition – while freeing up valuable time so they can focus on creating more strategic content. Expedience’s styles management solution ensures organizations have consistent, accurate, branded formatting across all sales documents. The tool ensures consistency and control – allowing you to easily align proposal formatting to meet customer RFP requirements. “Taking control of your document will help drive consistency and easy updating. Styles give you more confidence that the content you add to a document is consistent from a branding perspective across all your documents,” says Loudenback. That was a huge driver for QBT, an Australia-based travel agency that serves the Australian government among other corporate travel clients.