IBM's analytics raised its big-services bid win rate, worth about $350M.

IBM Services competes for multimillion-dollar IT contracts where many providers submit proposals and a shortlist survives intense negotiation.

IBM Research built an analytical ecosystem that reads an RFP, extracts client requirements and maps them to IBM offerings, then costs, prices and benchmarks the bid.

It also predicts how each deal is likely to move so sales managers can allocate the salesforce; the result was a higher win rate worth about $350 million.

Automate reading and pricing an RFP, then steer the pipeline

RFP review and pricing were slow and inconsistent

Reading and mapping requirements to offerings can be automated

Deal-status prediction lets managers steer scarce sales talent

Measured: a higher win rate worth about $350 million

In tender-based services, the winning edge is speed and accuracy in reading, costing and pricing a bid; automating that with analytics can lift win rate without changing the offer.

The tools became a reusable platform for IBM's bid business and can be carried to other tender-driven industries such as construction, financial services and medical services.