WSP is a leading multi-disciplinary professional services consulting business, providing engineering and environmental services from strategy advisory and planning through to design and delivery. With the aim of freeing up time for technical seller-doers to spend on client relationships, billable project work, training, and innovation, WSP implemented the cloud-based QorusDocs AI-powered proposal management software in 2023, automating, simplifying, and accelerating the firm’s pursuits process. The scalable, user-friendly platform gives seller-doers streamlined access to the best quality content to quickly and easily assemble winning bids—saving time and resources to drive margin enhancement and scale business growth.
WSP’s existing knowledge management practices were hindering the productivity and efficiency of its pursuits process. Given the importance of up-to-date, personalized content for creating winning proposals, WSP wanted a more modern, richer, and easier-to-use environment for sharing information and collaborating across teams. Plus, the firm wanted to increase the re-use of content, especially for smaller bids, by shredding RFPs and automatically gathering information from finished bids for re-use.
Ultimately, the professional services firm was seeking an AI-powered proposal automation and knowledge management solution—seamlessly integrated with its Microsoft applications (e.g., Teams, Word, PowerPoint)—that would drive efficiencies across the pursuits process, reduce operational costs, and boost win rates, while ensuring enterprise-level security and an unparalleled client experience.
“The QorusDocs platform creates more time for billable and value-added work with our clients and projects, while the enhanced knowledge base will accelerate our win rate and revenue growth. I’m delighted we chose QorusDocs and am now in the process of making a recommendation for the software to be rolled out globally.”
Strategic Growth Director & Bid Hub Project Director,
WSP UK
Looking to optimize its existing knowledge management and proposal creation processes, WSP recognized that an automated digital solution was the best way forward to extend efficiencies through the pursuits process—especially for technical winner-doers—in order to scale revenue growth. “When I joined in 2018, our sales bid process took a lot of time; it was overly stressful for winner-doers trying to respond to opportunities,” said Kelly.
“The critical piece was convincing the C-suite of the ROI of the digital transformation—making the political and economic case—especially given that this was one of the first business cases to be digitized at WSP,” said Kelly. “The CFO was an early supporter because I was able to clearly articulate how AI-powered proposal management software was going to help cut costs by saving time and resources. By using digital as a tool, as an enabler, we’re able to automate the pursuits process to help the Chief Strategy Officer make more sales and enable the CIO to reduce server costs and make IT more efficient.”
With the executive leadership team on board—and acknowledging that building a solution in-house was not the right path—WSP conducted a global evaluation of 11 potential proposal automation providers, shortlisting three vendors. The firm evaluated technical feasibility and conducted a MoSCoW analysis to help make configuration decisions, ultimately selecting QorusDocs. “In addition to the tangible efficiency and cost-saving benefits of the software, the QorusDocs team has a willingness to engage and understand the customer pain points and kind of lean into them which sets them apart,” noted Kelly.
“QorusDocs’ partnership with Microsoft was also a differentiator. When you think of a buying group evaluating the solution, you’ve got the sales stakeholder like me who is impressed with the front end. But I also need to satisfy security, enterprise architecture, IT governance,” said Kelly. “The Microsoft partnership, especially the QorusDocs AI strategy grounded in the Azure OpenAI platform (we’re early adopters of Microsoft Copilot) gave our C-suite a lot of comfort.”
In tandem with the deployment of the Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP system, WSP implemented the cloud-based QorusDocs AI-powered proposal management software in 2023 to automate, simplify, and accelerate its pursuits process. Initially, the QorusDocs automated platform is targeted at 1800 of WSP’s UK technical winner-doers generating 15,000+ small and medium-sized bids every year.
“The bottom line is QorusDocs makes us more efficient and gives our people back valuable time. By simplifying collaboration and streamlining the content management workflow to expedite the self-service bid response process, technical winner doers can spend more time on creating innovative solutions to clients’ problems, executing projects, and enriching client relationships,” said Kelly.
“The intangible ‘soft’ benefits of making someone's life easier and more enjoyable at work are much harder to quantify, but arguably the most important,” said Kelly. “The QorusDocs product architecture and blueprint are aligned to our company use case and benefits realization to enable a hybrid model of working with technology and tools that allows for a frictionless user experience.”
Kelly added, “I’ve found the experience working with QorusDocs to be professional, positive, and collaborative. Armed with fantastic training and knowledge resources, the team has been focused on delivering value and has kept us abreast of their product roadmap, including the QorusDocs generative AI strategy.”
With an embedded Microsoft 365 experience and seamless integration with Microsoft Teams, QorusDocs automates proposal creation and accelerates the bid process for WSP’s technical winner-doers. The AI-powered solution boosts efficiency and productivity by simplifying information sharing, increasing re-use of content, and streamlining collaboration.
The intuitive QorusDocs interface enables technical winner-doers to easily access the client-specific content they need to quickly create customized proposals. With a centralized content hub, WSP can collaborate efficiently with key stakeholders and SMEs, within familiar Microsoft 365 applications, to meet deadlines and ensure consistency and accuracy from a single source of truth.
The user-friendly, AI-powered QorusDocs proposal management solution is purpose-built with professional services skills to simplify and expedite the pursuits workflow, creating a frictionless user experience that minimizes stress, eases collaboration headaches, and enhances the employee experience.
With increased efficiency and productivity across its self-service bid process, WSP can scale revenue growth smoothly, responding to more opportunities and creating more proposals in less time without adding headcount.
As one of the largest professional services firms in the world, WSP exists to future-proof our cities and our environment. It provides strategic advisory, engineering and design services to clients seeking sustainable solutions in the transportation, infrastructure, environment, building, energy, water, and mining sectors. Its 66,500 trusted professionals, including more than 40 offices across the UK and Ireland, are united by the common purpose of creating positive, long-lasting impacts on the communities it serves through a culture of innovation, integrity, and inclusion. In 2023, WSP reported $14.4B (CAD) in revenue. www.wsp.com
QorusDocs is transforming the way Proposal & Bid teams, Business Development, and Sales & Marketing teams win business. Schedule a one-on-one demo to see firsthand how we’ll help you make smart proposals and winning RFP responses.
