A lesson from the Carillion bankruptcy: Bid with care

Carillion, Britain's second-biggest construction firm, went bankrupt earlier this year, owing $1.8 billion to its banks. The company employed 43,000 people worldwide. There were many reasons for its failure (read my friend Tate Parker's excellent overview here), but the one that jumped off the page to me was the fact that they had large contracts that were underbid and had little-to-no profit margin. That tells me they didn't do their due diligence before bidding—or what I call the go/no-go process.

Before you propose, you should detach yourself emotionally from the request for proposal or bid. Decide dispassionately whether to "go" or "no-go" after an opportunity. Admittedly that's hard to do when you need work, which is why you need a simple questionnaire that uses weighted scores. Then you can see clearly what you're bidding on (email me and I'll share one with you). 

Learn from Carillion's pain: winning the work without knowing if you can make a profit could be devastating.