Improving Bid Quality Through Colour Team Reviews

When it comes to bidding for contracts, too many companies focus on meeting the deadline rather than optimising the quality of the bid. Yet a proposal that is compliant, compelling, and customer-focused is often what separates a winning bid from one that’s overlooked. At Bid Capture, we encourage businesses—large and small—to consider how they currently assure the quality of their bids and whether they could benefit from introducing structured review processes, such as colour team reviews.

What Are Colour Team Reviews?

Colour team reviews are a staged quality assurance process used by successful bidding organisations to strengthen proposals at each phase of development. Each colour represents a different checkpoint, with a specific focus designed to enhance the quality, alignment, and impact of your bid. Far from being just a formality, these reviews allow teams to refine strategy, improve persuasiveness, ensure compliance, and catch errors before submission.

White Team Review

Conducted pre-RFP (Request for Proposal), the White Team Review focuses on opportunity qualification and early strategy. It asks whether the bid is worth pursuing and how well the opportunity fits with your business’s strengths and objectives. This is where you assess client fit, likely competition, and key win themes.

Blue Team Review

This review validates your capture strategy and proposed solution before any writing begins. It ensures that intelligence about the client, competitors, and internal capabilities is in place. It’s your chance to check that win themes, pricing models, and delivery plans are robust and aligned.

Pink Team Review

The Pink Team Review takes place once a draft outline or storyboard is developed. It assesses the proposed solution, structure, and strategic messaging. The goal is to ensure that the proposal is heading in the right direction before investing time in detailed writing.

Red Team Review

This is the most critical review before submission. Conducted with a near-final draft, the Red Team Review simulates the evaluator’s perspective, testing the bid for compliance, clarity, persuasiveness, and alignment with the client’s scoring criteria. It should ideally be conducted by someone not involved in writing the bid to ensure objectivity.

Gold Team Review

The Gold Team Review provides final sign-off. This is usually a leadership-level review to approve the proposal for submission, check commercial and contractual risk, and confirm that all internal governance standards have been met. It’s your last opportunity to ensure the bid is ready to

How to Introduce a Review Process in a Small Business

How SMEs can Introduce Reviews

Introducing colour team reviews doesn’t require a large team or complex systems. Here’s a simple action plan for small businesses to start building a scalable, quality-focused review process:

1. Start with Two Key Reviews - Begin with a Pink Review (after planning the bid) and a Red Review (before final submission). These two checkpoints will catch the majority of issues and improve overall bid quality.

2. Use Internal Resources Creatively - Ask colleagues, partners, or even external advisors to act as reviewers. The goal is to get fresh, critical feedback.

3. Create Review Checklists - Keep it structured and simple. A Pink Review checklist might focus on strategy and structure; a Red Review might cover compliance, clarity, and scoring potential.

4. Build in Time - Make review stages a formal part of your bid timeline. Don’t rush them; give yourself enough time to implement improvements.

5. Reflect and Refine - After each bid, take time to review what worked well in your process and adjust accordingly for next time.

The benefits? Fewer errors, clearer messaging, greater compliance, and a higher likelihood of success.

How Bid Capture Can Help

An outsourced bidding partner like Bid Capture can bring immediate value to your business by embedding structured review processes and enhancing bid quality. We can manage your entire bid process or provide targeted support—leading Pink, Red, and Gold Team reviews to challenge your strategy, polish your proposal, and ensure your bid is submission-ready. For businesses looking to build internal capacity, we also offer training and mentoring to help your team run their own effective reviews. With Bid Capture, even small businesses can adopt the best practices of industry leaders—without the overhead of a full-time bid team.