COMPANY:

Our customer, subsidiary from an European group installed in most than ten countries, has been delivering Managed Network & hosting services to businesses since 1994. It is recognized for his High level of expertise and quality regarding the way it follows its customers regarding the IP national and international network. In accordance with its growth, they’re looking for their Bid Manager.

Role summary:

The Senior Bid Manager is accountable for delivering professional value responses and quality proposals on schedule for large global and national corporate customers. The Senior Bid Manager owns and manages the bid process and is responsible for developing bid strategies to reflect customer key objectives in line with our customer policy and to focus on winnable and profitable opportunities.

He/she will have a key role in increasing the win/lost bid ratio in providing excellent bid qualification, bid strategy, bid risk management and bid production in using existing tools, methodologies and techniques.

The Senior Bid Manager is part of a centre of excellence and will constantly improve the bid management environment and will pro-actively train and improve knowledge of the sales force

Scope indicator:

Ability to produce quality and winning commercial proposals on schedule;

Ability to review and monitor progress and resolve identified problems;

Ability to record, analyse and manage issues, risks, changes and dependencies during the bid cycle;

Ability to provide professional consultancy services;

Excellence in qualifying customer RFP’s;

Leadership in working with all relevant resources to meet customer needs;

Improvement in win/lost bid ratios;

Ability to provide support to the sales teams;

Ability to promote the bid process locally (recap, update, etc.) and act as an ambassador;

Skills:

Excellent language skills written and verbal in French, English and Italian, Spanish is a pro;

Prince 2 certified or other project management skills;

Master in Excel and Word, proven experience;

Certified trainer and communicator.

Key Responsibility areas:

Bid Management expertise - Provide Bid Management expertise within the company in using and pushing the existing environment including methodologies, processes, tools, techniques, rules and collaterals and in providing pro-active guidance during the bid cycle on the best practices to follow to build quality solutions & proposals, which are deliverable. Own the company bid process and ensuring that all the stages of the process are respected (Qualification, Production, Review) including sign-off.

Delivery of best quality proposals - Provide professional proposals that have a winning impact. Structure the customer responses into quality tenders’ RFP to reflect customer objectives, the customer superbly managed services and key messages. Develop tailored proposals, which speak the customer language and reflect what is relevant to him.

Bid strategy – Develop a bid strategy on a deal basis (should we do it? can we do it? cost vs. profit vs. risks, key selling points) and make sure the proposal is aligned to it.

Bid risk management – Identify and mitigate contractual, financial, operational, technical risks and work with the relevant stakeholders to address and resolve pending issues.

Value propositions - Develop bespoke propositions to fit with complex customer requirements. Consider all aspects of the customer solution commercially, technically, legally, operationally, financially to ensure business objectives of the customer are met. Demonstrate innovative approaches to each solution to not only ensure that the customer requirements are met but that we develop “differentiators” to our competitors as recognised by our customers.

Sales Achievement – Provide professional support to the sales teams, developing a strong partnership between both the sales organisation and the supporting functions (marketing, finance, legal, etc.).

Reporting & Analysis – Produce regular reports related to the markets, the leads and monitor client data to spot trends. Interact with Senior Management on a deal basis to get bid sign-on, sign-off, support, and highlight threats and opportunities.

Products Marketing Improvement – Conduct bid review meetings with the bid team and highlight the lessons learnt. Provide relevant input to Product Marketing related to market trends and the company products and services in order to improve these.

Competencies:

Consultancy competency – Experience operating in a consultancy role with demonstrable knowledge of the development of large bespoke IP solutions. Understand customer drivers and is able to clearly develop and match solutions with operational and strategic needs.

Commercial awareness – Possess a good knowledge of the corporate sector and of the commercial drivers that impact the customer. Is able to effectively qualify a deal, understand the commercial and financial benefits of acquiring the business and develop a strong P&L model for very large deals.  Candidates must also have a demonstrable track record of winning large bids.

Leadership - Enthusiastic, energetic, positive and displays "can do" approach. Strong leadership to “push boundaries”, motivate people and influence stakeholders. Uses own initiative & judgment to tackle issues. Plans ahead & organizes both self and others effectively.

Process management – Owns and manages the bid management process across the organisation so that major bids are well identified and customer requirements are managed and supported professionally and effectively.

Transversal capabilities – Ability to work in a team orientated environment. Liaise with several internal departments to push customers’ solutions forward. Leadership in championing opportunities to contract signature. Good financial and legal knowledge.

Relationship building and influencing skills - a true team player, bold and warm at the same time , not afraid to challenge existing thinking, being a true sparring partner, recognising key strengths of team members and able to get the most out of them.

Project management - Recognises priorities and is self-sufficient ensuring all internal and external commitments are met. Is able to effectively manage a number of concurrent projects. Has project management skills and experience to hand-over bids properly demonstrating clear planning capability and follow through to delivery.

Reasoning and analytical capabilities - Able to analyse business proposals in order to effectively qualify and support opportunities. Good intellectual reasoning to asses the impact of all elements of the proposal and see if it makes economic sense to our customer. Able to provide consistent reporting for major projects to highlight key deals at senior level. Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Personal motivation - Demonstrate a passion for selling large complex projects to multinationals. Proactively looks for opportunities and market research to make improvements to enhance personal & team effectiveness.  Has a strong credibility in building and conducting major bids.