AddressDescription
Bring your career and talents to CDW, where you can have a greater impact, be inspired by our mission and excited about your job and future. With revenues of over £1 billion, CDW UK is a leading supplier of IT solutions and services to a broad range of commercial and public sector customers globally.
CDW’s bid management team facilitates the proposal development process from qualification to contract award. They oversee the creation of presales documentation and presentations for prospects and trading customers, both in proactive and responsive scenarios.
Bid managers produce the tendering plan and establish the virtual bidding team, which typically includes representation from CDW’s sales, business development management, solutions and project management departments. They work closely with account managers to produce cost models and track completion of written assignments. They also organise appropriate document approvals and bid submission.
Essentially, Bid Managers oversee the proposal development process to produce high-quality, compliant bids on time and in an organised fashion.
What you’ll do:
- Supporting the bid/no bid review, providing rationale for the pursuit decision
- Manage the proposal project, working closely with the account manager who 'owns' the opportunity
- Produce and manage the proposal project plan (including risk analysis and contingency planning), ensuring that all necessary activities are completed on time
- Build the proposal team - identify and brief the staff who need to be involved, and ensure their focus and motivation
- On a project-by-project basis, co-ordinate and manage the activities of the other proposal centre staff who may be involved in the proposal
- Facilitate the proposal strategy meeting, with the account team and other key proposal contributors, to establish a clear strategy (based on customer and competitive analysis) and to 'storyboard' proposal content
- Coach and chase content contributors as required - managing content quality reviews
- Review and critique content as it is produced by the contributors and proposal managers. Ensure that the overall document tells a consistent and clear story.
- Ensure that all relevant processes are followed as required (e.g. qualification, approvals), and lead meetings as required
- Coach the bid presentation team if required (slide development, logistics, rehearsals etc.)
- Lead proposal learning reviews (providing objective facilitation, and developing clear action plans)
- Once a proposal has been submitted, identify new content that may be re-usable via the team's pre-written content library
- Suggest, lead and contribute to projects to improve the organisation’s bid and proposal management capabilities.
What you need to succeed:
Minimum three years’ experience in bids and proposals – in purchasing and/or sales - of which at least two must have been spent on the vendor side of the table- Clear understanding of strategic proposal management processes, including pre-proposal planning, strategy development and storyboarding – as well as overall proposal project management
- Excellent facilitation skills – able to build and motivate proposal teams, generate creativity, act as an effective “devil’s advocate”. Understand and use a range of effective facilitation techniques.
- Able to quickly establish credibility and rapport with sales and business staff and to form teams across organisational boundaries
- Strong project management skill-set and mindset; able to manage teams and projects under tight time pressure
- ‘Business-savvy' – some relevant market understanding ideal (but not essential from Day One)
- Good purchasing empathy (able to “read between the lines” of the RFP to identify the customer’s drivers).
- Strong strategic thinking (to develop proposal strategies, with the account team)
- Enthusiasm for working in an intensive, deadline-driven and high-profile role
- Good strategic proposal writing skills
- Able to work effectively on multiple, concurrent projects
- Ideally, holding at least Foundation Level APMP accreditation, with a clear plan in place to reach certified Practitioner Level over time
Who we are:
CDW is a leading technology solutions provider to business, government, education and healthcare organisations in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Our fingerprints can be found on technology in workplaces of more than 250,000 companies; from startups to international conglomerates. With the breadth of products and services we offer, there is no request too big or too small.
What you can expect from us: Culture, coworkers, careers:
CDW is not only the People Who Get IT, but the People who get People. Our relationships are fuelled by our deep expertise and grounded in the CDW Way. Our empowering leadership makes things happen and inspires their teams to do the same. From the teammates beside us to the leaders who guide us, we move forward together. At CDW, you’ll work with people who inspire you. People with positive, success-driven attitudes who you will learn from and forge strong relationships with. Bring your best true self—and your best ideas—to CDW. Because diverse perspectives bring forth better problem solving—and better solutions for our customers on a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
