Bid Manager

Role Definition

A senior member of the Bids and Tendering department, working closely with all disciplines within the team and the wider business, to ensure delivery of high quality, winning bids, and ensuring these are effectively mobilised to the project delivery team.

The Bids and Tendering function is a centralised bidding team that is responsible for managing the signalling bids for Rail Infrastructure in the UK, ensuring appropriate levels of governance and accuracy is applied to a winning strategy.

Key Accountabilities

· Management of the creation of winning tenders through full bid lifecycle from Bid/No-Bid through to customer negotiation and Contract Award, for bids ranging from £100k up to £50m.

· Definition and implementation of winning bid strategies ensuring a breakdown of tender requirements and coordination of all technical, commercial and financial aspects of the estimation and proposal creation process (including pricing structures, subcontract partnerships etc.)

· Preparation, review and coordination of compelling tender documentation ensuring high levels of consistency and quality, that adequately captures our offer, provides an accurate baseline for a future project, incorporates lessons learned, and mitigates company risks

· Preparation of all review meeting materials and coordination of the close-out of all actions where required for individual tenders

· Provision of leadership to the tender team and allocated business resources, influencing and negotiating with people at all levels, including providing progress reports to management

· Involvement in pre and post bid submission negotiations with the client encompassing technical, financial and commercial considerations, acting as the client single point of contact in relation to the bid.

· Production and delivery of presentations (internal and external to the client) up to board level

· Responsible for transferring knowledge from the tendering team to the Delivery team, verifying the tender and achieving scope stability and handover to Delivery

· Accurate management of bid budgets, and ensuring company policies and procedures (including quality assurance) as suitably followed, striking the right balance between governance and cost efficiency

· Implement improvement in company processes and standards in relation to bid management

Measures

· Individual win rate

· Elapsed time from ITT arrival to submission

· Cost of bidding against allocated budget

· Quality of tender documentation

· Customer feedback

Specific Skills/Tasks

Essential:

· Able to manage the delivery of multiple bids through corporate governance procedures, including parallel approval workstreams (e.g. financial, technical, commercial etc.)

· Significant bid management experience from an engineering project based business, in a regulated industry, with experience leading bids in excess of £10m, and managing bid budgets in excess of £100k

· Possess a good understanding of the way in which railway-signalling projects are managed and delivered in order to influence, monitor and challenge every aspect of the bid i.e. project management, finance, engineering, planning, delivery and commercial inputs.

· Commercially astute, and able to structure a bid to present the offer in the best light whilst minimising risk to the business

· Possesses sufficient management experience (min. 3 years) and stature to operate at the same level as project managers and business managers, in order to provide appropriate leadership to tender teams

· Strong customer focus, able to manage complex negotiations with the client as appropriate.

· Matrix management experience in leading teams greater than 20 people, motivating and directing team members to a shared goal

· Ability to influence and negotiate with people at all levels within the company and customer organisations, whilst fostering strong working relationships (up to board level)

· High degree of mobility to spend a time away from the agreed ‘base’ office as required.

· Excellent communication skills both oral and written.

· A pro-active high achiever with high energy levels, who is used to working under pressure and to tight/challenging deadlines.

· Degree qualified (or equivalent) in a business or technically related discipline

· Proficient in the use of Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint.

Desirable:

· IEE or MIRSE preferable

· Previously, or currently, occupying the position of Bid Manager, Project Manager, or Commercial Manager in an engineering project based business.