Two hours to a starting point, on a licence bought last year
The short version. A Department for Work and Pensions procurement, Future Employment Support, led Serco to open an expression of interest form. Alphabet Group had around 2,000 words to write for it, mostly track record, methodology, regional presence and stakeholder relationships. Their Bidwin Core installation was already in place from the last bid, along with the one-time house-style instruction, so the bid writer ran the same workflow in Claude Pro and Bidwin’s drafting skill gave them a solid starting point. A person second-drafted it, and a director proofread and signed it off. The AI-assisted part took two hours, and it cost nothing extra, because Alphabet had bought Bidwin-AI nearly a year earlier.
A form worth getting right
Serco is a multinational, and for Alphabet Group a potential client on a different scale from the usual. The form itself was modest, around 2,000 words. What it was for was not.
Most of those words had to present Alphabet’s track record, its methodology, its regional presence and its stakeholder relationships. The four things a prime contractor wants to know before it trusts a subcontractor with delivery. Every one of them lives in the organisation’s own past bids and evidence, if someone has the time to go and find it.
Nothing to set up
The last time Alphabet bid, the Bidwin Core plugin was installed in minutes and a one-time instruction taught it how Alphabet writes. Both were still there.
So there was no set-up. The bid writer opened Claude Pro, ran the same setup, vet, draft and quality assurance workflow the previous bid had used, and Bidwin’s drafting skill produced a solid starting point for the form.
Not a finished answer. A starting point a bid writer could work from, with the track record and the relationships already on the page instead of still in the folder.
Then a person wrote the bid
The draft was second-drafted by a real person. It then went through a careful proofread at director level, and a director signed it off before it went to Serco.
The AI-assisted part of that, start to finish, lasted two hours.
What it cost
Nothing that hadn’t already been paid. Alphabet bought Bidwin-AI nearly a year earlier. The installation, the house style and the workflow all carried over, so this bid drew on the licence without adding to it.
That’s the number this case study is really about. The first bid on a Bidwin licence has a price attached. The second one doesn’t, and neither does the tenth.
What this is, and what it is not
One expression of interest, at one organisation, on a workflow it had used before. Mark’s account of it says nothing about how Serco responded, so neither does this page. When there’s an outcome to report, it will be added here with a date.
Two hours to a starting point is what the source supports, and a starting point is what it was. The bid was still written, checked and signed by people at Alphabet. Bidwin’s contribution was the two hours, and the fact that they cost nothing.
At a glance
| Client | Alphabet Group |
|---|---|
| Procurement | Department for Work and Pensions, Future Employment Support |
| Submission | A Serco expression of interest form |
| Length | Around 2,000 words, mainly track record, methodology, regional presence and stakeholder relationships |
| Set-up | None needed: Bidwin Core installed in minutes on the previous bid, with the one-time house-style instruction still in place |
| Workflow | The same setup, vet, draft and quality assurance workflow as Alphabet’s last bid, in Claude Pro |
| Bidwin’s part | The drafting skill produced a solid starting point for the bid writer |
| Human input | Second draft by a person, then a careful director-level proofread and sign-off |
| AI-assisted time | Two hours |
| Cost of this bid | Nothing extra: Alphabet had bought Bidwin-AI nearly a year earlier |
| Outcome | Not stated in the source, so not published |
| Not published | Contract value, scores, dates, competitor numbers and the names of the people involved, because none are in the source |
Every fact in this case study comes from Mark Cosens’ written account of the bid. The outcome of the expression of interest is not in that account and is not claimed. No individual at Alphabet Group is named, because the source names none. Last reviewed 11 September 2026.
The second bid is the cheap one
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