Head of Bids

**Head of Bids & Tenders (Flexible Location)**

**About the role**:
Do you want to be part of a FTSE100 company, with a purpose of **Making amazing happen for a better world? **It is an exciting time to join RS UK&I within this newly created role of** Head of Bids &** **Tenders**. We are looking for someone who can establish a real “centre of excellence” within the bid function, which will govern and manage repeatable, high-quality bids for all RS market sectors.

Leading and directing a Bid Team capable of managing and converting strategically important bids (by value and must win analysis).

You will develop and implement bid conversion strategies in close liaison with/and plans which support the annual revenue growth and business targets across all RS Components UK&I.

You will ensure robust agile bid governance is established to effectively manage opportunities through the bid lifecycle to contract award, building a credible strategic bid team to support the core Bid Team on all bids and tenders and ensure that the team produce accurate bid cost and pricing for internal approval that meet with bid requirements and RS margin expectations and competitor analysis.

You will provide effective support to the business and will ensure all documentation is of a high standard. From the initial stages of the sales process, marketing, and product leads, ensuring clear concise business winning propositions are part of each bid.

Most importantly you will be a coach and mentor to the Bid Team encouraging and empowering personal development, helping identify and correct gaps in relevant skills and knowledge, defining, and helping the team to achieve career goals.

**Key Accountabilities**:

- Lead, manage and mentor a high-quality team of bid professionals ensuring that their workloads are planned, managed, balanced, and provide career developments across all RS product and market sectors.
- Structure and lead significant, complex bid opportunities whilst taking overall responsibility for the coordination of the technical, commercial, financial, key account, HSSEQ and market sector inputs into the bids.
- Take overall responsibility for the bid process and communicate to the Senior Management Team accurate reports of the status of bids and tenders, ensuring deadlines are met and effectively communicating win/loss figures. Provide lessons learned for bids and effectively communicating these to external stakeholders within RS to provide continuous improvement.
- Suggest improvements to internal processes related to bid management to support continuous improvement and implement a robust set of procedures to manage and streamline the bid lifecycle.
- Produce accurate bid pricing for internal approval and to meet with bid requirements and negotiate contract terms following input from the commercial team and provide accurate contract handover information to project managers and support project managers with sales aftercare to clients
- Extensive experience of B2B bid management in an enterprise level company
- Experience of working with multiple market sectors and products/services.
- Excellent project management skills with strong focus on attention to detail, proven track record of successfully delivering multiple bids.
- An excellent communicator with the ability to influence at all levels within a complex organisational structure.
- Commercially astute with business development, sales, and sound financial reporting skills.
- Proven capacity to effectively manage complex proposal development processes, as well as manage and mentor staff with various levels of skills and experience.
- Demonstrated achievement in the design and implementation of tender documents across a wide selection of bids including public procurement and multi-million framework contracts.
- APMP or another bid/project management qualification/s is highly desirable as well as being educated to Degree level or equivalent experience qualified.