What is prequalification?
Prequalification is approval a contractor must earn before it can bid, based on safety, insurance, financial and experience records. Owners, GCs and large facility operators collect this through standard questionnaires. The AIA's A305 qualification statement covers legal status, financial information, safety program and records, insurance, bonds and past projects; ConsensusDocs 721 does the same for subcontractors.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
Prequalification decides who gets onto the bid list in the first place. A company without approval at a target account cannot bid its work, however strong the relationship. At industrial plants, hospitals and national accounts, the prequal packet is often a sales gate run by procurement or safety teams the seller never meets. A revenue leader should know which target accounts the company is approved with, which approvals are about to lapse, and which safety or insurance records are keeping the team out of bids.
Example
An environmental services company targets a chemical manufacturer's three plants. The seller learns the plants only invite approved vendors and that approval requires three years of safety records and a minimum insurance limit. The company completes the packet in six weeks and receives its first bid invitation the next quarter.
"Which of our top 20 target accounts have we yet to prequalify with?"