Requirements and compliance
How teams interpret tender requirements, identify obligations, manage compliance and make sure important requirements are not missed.
RFP market research · Singapore
I independently research how technical businesses prepare complex bids and proposals — where experienced people lose time, which bottlenecks recur, and what can realistically be simplified without compromising quality.
This research output is personally supported, and is open for all to use.

Whom does this work help
Teams on Complex Technical BidsBusiness Development · Proposal Leads · Technical SMEsWho I am
I'm Saurab Verma, PhD, currently working as a Senior Scientist in A*STAR, Singapore since 2018. I had completed my PhD from NUS (full scholarship) in 2018 and my master's and bachelor's from BITS-Pilani, India, in 2014.
My professional background spans senior research, technical and engineering work in AI, robotics, autonomous systems, and technical proposal writing. over the years, I've won a few awards for my contributions to the technical society, including ITE'25, TKK-YIA'22, MIT'20, etc. But this site is independent work from my employment and is 100% conducted personally, using my own personal time and resources. My broader professional background is available on LinkedIn.
What I am doing
I am trying to understand why many technical SMEs or small teams within LLEs have relatively low approval rate for tender/proposal submissions. More importantly, I'm very curious whether some AI or automation systems help minimize time wastage of high earning (technical or business) staff. Some examples are as follows.
How teams interpret tender requirements, identify obligations, manage compliance and make sure important requirements are not missed.
How teams find previous answers, technical evidence, credentials, methodologies and other information that already exists somewhere inside the business.
How business-development, commercial and technical people work together to draft, review, approve and submit complex responses.
Why is it worth it
In my professional career, I've reached a stage where a significant amount of my time is being spent on proposal drafting. Over the years, I've tried to improve my skillset from experienced professionals but found that many-a-times, even they struggle with the exact same problem.
The real problem is the level of complexity as well as dynamic variations involved. Hence, the perception can completely change given the context. For example, some of the common affecting variables can be proposal examination duration, key staff attrition, new competition, new technologies in the market, business expectation changes, etc. Furthermore, some of the variables cannot even be predicted or controlled with automation such as reputation of a technical staff/team, new social connections, new skilled expertise, global economic uncertainty, etc.
But at the same time, developing a skillset on which proposals to invest time and energy is essential for ensuring smooth business continuity from both short and long term perspectives. Likewise, here I'm building an open library on common guidelines that many of the successful proposal managers and team follows, especially for technical tenders in Singapore.
Published information is provided for general informational purposes. Results will vary by organisation and context, and readers remain completely responsible for how they use the information. Terms & Disclaimer.
Latest research notes
An evidence-led examination of whether proposal AI understands local procurement environments or merely operates across them. It compares global, regional, and Singapore-native products to assess the potential for geography-, sector-, and workflow-specific specialisation in Singapore and APAC.
An evidence-led examination of why companies continue to hire proposal freelancers even as AI can read RFPs, retrieve evidence, draft responses, and check compliance. It argues that workflow orchestration and authoritative business decisions may be a harder bottleneck than proposal writing itself.
An exploration of how procurement scale, proposal-team effort, sector differences, and country-specific rules shape the opportunity for AI-assisted RFP and tender work. It compares Singapore with larger markets, examines existing proposal-software companies, and separates recurring workflow pain from misleading procurement totals before ending with questions for practitioners.
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If you believe I can help you with something or you can contribute to this community, please feel free to drop me a message. I personally read all the emails/messages.