Do you need a Curriculum Design example in your portfolio to bid for a project?

Someone asked a question in Linked-In which ran something like

How does an organisation bid for a project in Curriculum Design without having such a project to present in its portfolio?

Here is how I responded:

I believe that an organisation evaluating such a bid would look at the proposed design, whether the proposed design suits the requirements and delivers ROI, the of the capablity of the vendor to to implement the proposed design, and cost of the proposed solution.

Having an implemented solution already in the portfolio would only strengthen your claims. It would not be the primary deciding factor in my opinion.

Think of it this way. There are MANY organisations who bid for and implement curriculum design projects. When they started and got the first such project, did all of them have an implemented solution in the portfolio? I would be willing to wager that this is not the case. You have to start somewhere.

I have written a design document for an RFP which required me to design a curriculum. The proposal got shortlisted for the next round. Since the organisation I work for does not have a successfully implemented instance of 'Curriculum Design' in the portfolio this example goes to prove my point.

What are your thoughts?