Bid Managers should be quick on their feet and assertive yet tactful in motivating other members of a bid team to produce a successful submission. Time management, efficiency, the ability to meet deadlines and work with minimal supervision are all important. So are leadership and team work – no one can produce a bid single-handedly.
Good Bid Managers listen to other people's views while having confidence in their own convictions and express their own opinions well.
Bid Manager job description (in short)
The role of Bid Manager is often poorly understood, yet it is crucial to any organization’s success.
Bids are a high-stakes, ultra-competitive business, with no second prizes or chances. Because they are so critical to winning new work, as well as keeping existing contracts, bid managers are vital to a company's continuing existence, and to job security.
Bids are detailed, complex documents that often run to hundreds of pages, outlining how the candidate organization would meet a contract's requirements. They cover a wide range of issues, from health and safety to customer care and staff issues, and are weighted for quality as well as price.
Primary Responsibilities
The role and responsibilities of Bid Manager jobs vary between organizations. But, essentially, Bid Manager is responsible for submitting a completed bid to an existing or prospective client, on time and within budget. They ensure that all the client's questions have been answered as fully as possible, and that the organization has given itself the best possible chance of success.
Bid Managers facilitate the proposal development process from start to finish. They oversee the creation of presales documentation and presentations for potential customers. Bid Managers also produce the tendering plan and establish the tendering team, which typically includes representation from a company's financial, legal, sales and procurement departments. They work closely with sales managers to estimate project costs and track completion of written assignments. Bid managers also organize bid distribution logistics, including the management approval process. Essentially, Bid Managers oversee the proposal development process to provide high-quality bids on time and in an organized fashion.
Working under the direction of Bid Director, the role involves leading all day-to-day aspects of an individual bid. Bid Managers are involved in every aspect of the submission and have an excellent appreciation of what the client needs and how best to articulate how their organization can provide that. They work closely with a core team while bringing in subject matter experts when required.
Bid Manager is also the first point of contact for the client, and liaises with estimators who produce the price element of a bid. This is collated with the 'quality' submission, which is what bid managers generally work on.
The Support Office is a vital service to the organization and preparation of the bid. Essentially represents the core information exchange and communication. It has an electronic system for managing calls and monitoring applications for the preparation of the bid. In this system, all relevant information is monitored on an ongoing basis until the final realization of customer requirements. Bid Solutions personnel are responding to meet any demand with partial deliveries up to 18 hours after the request to prepare a bid.