Cost Estimator

Smiths Detection, part of Smiths Group, is a global leader in threat detection and screening technologies. The business caters to markets like defense, urban security, ports and borders, and aviation. We provide solutions required to defend society from the threat and unauthorized movement of explosives, illicit weapons, contraband, toxic chemicals, and drugs, thanks to our experience and history gained over more than 40 years on the front lines.

This role can be based in either Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire or Wiesbaden, Germany.

The Cost Estimator supports the UK & German sales activity by developing and delivering timely and accurate costing for complex high value multi-year service contracts, bids and renewals, so being fluent in both German & English is a must for this position. The role sits as part of a specialist costing and commercial function that supports all geographies globally. As part of the role, specialists advise on deal structures, identify resourcing requirements and contribute to the overall improvement and evolution of costing, pricing and contract design for all regional geographies and products.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Agree outcomes and deliverables with applicable internal stakeholders.
• Review customer tender documents, statements of work/specifications and deal strategies; develop and validate the scope of work for Services.
• Use knowledge, experience and data to help bids teams and sales colleagues create innovative bid strategies.
• Gather inputs and data (cost, field, market) from specialists around the business including service delivery, supply chain, engineering, finance, legal, programmes and product management, ensuring they are accurate, to build deal costing.
• Build costing and pricing models using agreed tools and processes and/or develop bespoke models where required and coach others on their use.
• Provide accurate and timely costing (and where applicable pricing) inputs to business cases, in accordance with the agreed schedule.
• Support briefing of costing to service delivery teams for won business.
• Communicate status and process of costing and pricing activities to key stakeholders.
• Create and use standard, repeatable methodologies.
• Deliver outputs in an easy to understand, standardized format that enables decision processes and bidding.
• Undertake assessment and reporting of risk and variance in cost and price models.
• Provide pricing recommendations where requested.
• Make recommendations on applicable contractual terms relating to service costing/pricing.
• Collect and review current and historic contract data and build comparisons between proposed deals and current/historic deals.
• Monitor actual achieved service agreement costs for contracted deals, including analysis of the variance between planned and actual costs (labour, material, and overhead cost) and explain the variances.
• Feed this variance understanding into the evolution of the future costing process, identifying and championing business improvement initiatives that may come from that activity.
• Support Service Delivery resource planning through modelling of staffing costs and requirements for new and renewed service contracts.
• Identification of improvements to the costing and pricing processes.

Qualifications:

Technical Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Graduate qualification in finance, business, engineering or numerate subject.
• Fluent in German & English.

Experience:

• Developing financial costing and pricing models for high value bids and tenders.
• Track record as the "go to" person for business on costing and pricing.
• Demonstrated experience in identification of opportunity and risk.
• Experience of bidding, tender review and interpretation.
• Experienced in working with data, operational and financial analysis.

Knowledge/Skills:

• Skilled in financial modelling of long term deals/contracts for complex asset/equipment maintenance.
• Understanding of how costing and pricing translates to contractual terms and conditions.
• Strong IT skills.
• Smiths Detection product knowledge.
• Expertise in modelling tools.
• Experience of SAP systems.
• Proficient in all basic MS programs, including advanced MS Excel skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English, a confident communicator, both written and verbal.