Bid Manager in Somerset, Templecombe

A fantastic opportunity has arisen for a Senior Bid Manager to join the team with our prestigious client at their site in Templecombe. This is a hybrid role, onsite 2-3 days per week, and working from home 2-3 days per week.

The UK Bid & Project Management vision is: “Accountable professionals leading the successful delivery of bids and projects to all our customers”

What the Role Has to Offer:

UWS is growing at a rapid pace. Due to the success of programmes within UWS and with a portfolio of world-leading products both in conventional systems and in new technologies (maritime autonomy), this has led to an extensive prospect list, consisting of a significant number of strategic bids. This role is an opportunity to lead some major bids that are critical to the long-term strategy of UWS and the Business. You will be working as part of an established team in one of the most exciting areas of the business.

Primary Purpose of the Role:

The purpose of this role is to ensure the successful delivery of bids within the UWS domain. The role is to ensure that the initial project baseline for project execution (post contract award) is robust, with an appropriate level of confidence that customer and business expectations will be met. This will be achieved through the leadership of a multi-disciplinary Bid team to own and deliver high-quality business winning proposals.

The role requires strong leadership, professional bid and project management expertise, excellent stakeholder management, commercial awareness and a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating risk.

Key Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Role modelling the Thales leadership model behaviours
• Embedding a strong sense of delivery accountability and a proactive risk and opportunity management culture (for both ‘winability' and ‘deliverability') at all levels of the bid team
• Creating and controlling the bid schedule and resource plan leading and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to achieve key milestones
• Establishing and controlling the requirements baseline (technical and non-technical), including compliance traceability, allocation to work packages and the end-to-end estimating process
• Ensuring the creation of robust initial project baselines for delivery post-contract award
• Supporting the management of Customer, supplier and partner relationships – building trust and confidence through open dialogue
• Tailoring and application of bid governance as appropriate, including bid stage gates, bid reviews and project characterisation
• Coordination and control of the Master Assumptions, Dependencies and Exclusions List (MADEL), ensuring alignment across all Bid artefacts including the Project execution baseline, estimates and proposal/commercial terms
• Coordination of proposal development, including the use of colour/peer reviews as appropriate
• Ensuring cross-functional alignment, both in terms of support to bid delivery and clear commitment to the as-bid Initial Project baseline
• Ensuring appropriate focus on CASH management and achieving a positive net cash profile associated with the initial project baseline
• Promoting and enabling left-shifting e.g. solutions options and selection, make/team/buy decisions, project execution strategies
• Leading and coordinating PQQ responses, including reviews, governance and final sign-off
• Contributing to the identification of customer hot buttons/win strategy and alignment of Bid activities to address these
• Creating initial Project plans (e.g. Project Charter, PMP, ROMP) for the execution of the contract as required for the proposal
• Providing coaching and guidance to more junior bid managers
• Establishing and maintaining the bid data repository ensuring migration to the future project data repository as part of a managed handover to the project execution team
• Ensuring that all bid activities comply with the relevant Thales Chorus 2 processes
• Supporting ad-hoc duties that will be consistent with the nature of the bid manager position
• Management and control of bid budgets (including status and forecast) for all bids within their working perimeter and liaison with PMO to reflect in appropriate tools

Experience:

Essential:

• A proven track record of delivering successful bids and/or projects
• Leading and managing multi-disciplinary teams in achieving challenging timelines and with a proactive focus on risk and opportunity management
• Managing internal stakeholders and customer/supplier/partner relationships
• Constructing compelling proposals and/or solutions that meet customer needs
• Gate bid lifecycle processes efficiently applying reviews and ensuring that business risk is appropriately managed
• Structuring and planning complex projects including the tailored deployment of best practice
• Management and control of technical and non-technical requirements on complex bids and projects, including compliance traceability, allocation to WPs and the end-to-end estimating process
• Management of commercial and technical assumptions, dependencies and exclusions, ensuring alignment across all bid and/or project artefacts
• Experience with coaching others including junior bid managers and knowledge sharing
• Working in a complex, multi-site organisation

Desirable:

• Experience of working to a Target Price or ‘Price to Win'
• Experience of Defence Portal, AWARD, DOORS

Skills:

Essential:

• Leadership and management in a bid and/or project context, including the ability to adapt personal style to achieve the desired results
• Strong negotiation skills with the ability to deal with customers, partners, suppliers and other parts of the business (stakeholder management skills)
• Strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills with written presentation and report writing skills.
• The ability to look ahead, identify risks and proactively engage with them
• Resilience and the ability to successfully manage change
• Communication – interpersonal, verbal and presentation/report writing
• Organisation and analytical skills in complex environments
• A positive attitude combined with excellent interpersonal and motivational skills

Qualifications:

Desirable:

• Professional capture, bid or proposal management training/Certification E.g. Shipley, APMP
• Professional project management qualifications - IPMA Level B or above or equivalent
• Recognising the RESTRICTED nature of the work, suitable candidates will be SC cleared or eligible for this level of clearance