Managing Director - Bid Management
About the Company: Carley Consult is a bid writing consultancy, with a turnover of approximately £600K to £900K p/a, and a current staff team of 11. We primarily provide proposal writing services which help our clients to win competitively tendered public sector contracts. These are mainly charged for on a day rate or fixed price basis. Our primary markets are employability, vocational education, justice services, and recruitment, albeit we have delivered occasional assignments in other markets. We support a broad range of clients, including national government outsourcers, FE colleges, independent training providers, health and employability charities, and local authorities. Clients are located across the UK, as well as a small number in Australia. We have helped our clients to win an estimated £2bn+ in new contract value since 2007.
Primary Job Purpose: To lead and manage the company, with an emphasis on accountability for all consultancy assignments. A key responsibility will be in directly managing key consultancy assignments on behalf of clients, acting as lead project manager and primary point of contact, especially for major accounts. The MD will also be a highly visible ambassador for the company within its wider market more broadly. The MD will report to the owners (business founder and majority shareholder), with a view to progressively taking-on greater autonomy and more of the day-to-day running of the company.
Office Base: Based at our offices in Doncaster, albeit expected to travel for client assignments and account management meetings around the UK. The ideal candidate will live in a commutable distance from Doncaster, albeit candidates from further afield who are prepared to commit to a balance of weekly on-site and work from home activity would not be ruled out.
Remuneration: Around £65K to £75K p/a plus performance related bonus potential, to be negotiated with the preferred candidate. The business also offers a contributory pension scheme, matched at 5% of salary, and health insurance.
Core Responsibilities:
- Working with the owners and Management Team to devise and apply an annual strategic business plan, with SMART objectives for business performance and growth.
- Key responsibility for financial performance in terms of monthly KPIs for profitability and for the number of billable consultancy days delivered against budget/target.
- Directly managing key consultancy assignments on behalf of clients, acting as lead project manager and primary point of contact, especially for major accounts.
- Overall accountability for proposal writing assignments, ensuring these are delivered on time, on budget, and to the highest possible standards of quality assurance.
- Applying a staged bid process uniformly across all assignments, supporting high quality, best practice, and a consistent client experience, and underpinning our ISO 9001 accreditation.
- Recruitment, training, and personal development of the consultancy team, progressing their capabilities in line with our internal competency framework and APMP certifications.
- Building the sales pipeline, primarily shaping our e-marketing campaign strategy, growing our database reach, and improving our account management of sales from existing clients.
- Shaping the diversification of the business
- Oversight of our salesforce CRM system, especially in generating reports which drive business strategy (e.g. sales pipeline/campaigns, consultant productivity).
- Leading tenders and proposals submitted by Carley Consult itself to win new business, including increasing our reach through relevant frameworks (e.g. ESPO 664).
- Ensuring that the company’s organisational policy and procedures are relevant, current, in line with all statutory requirements, and are accessible to all staff.
- Selection, appointment, and co-ordination of a network of highly skilled external associates, who can be drawn upon to supplement internal resource when needed.
- Inputting into web and social media content, including thought leadership articles, to help reinforce the Carley Consult brand as market leaders in proposal services.
Key Success Measures
- Overall dividend and share value of the business.
- Month-by-month profitability of the business.
- The proportion of successful tenders submitted on behalf of clients.
- New sales conversion (new clients, repeat business, and sales value).
- Client satisfaction feedback ratings.
- Competency progression within the consultancy team
Person Specification:
The ideal candidate for this position will have at least 10 years of career experience relevant to this job description. They will have excellent commercial and entrepreneurial acumen with a career record in a senior management or business development position. This will include experience as a line manager, effectively leading, inspiring, and developing team members.
The preferred will have experience within a professional services business environment, such as management consultancy or a comparable discipline (e.g. accountancy, legal, etc.). They will ideally have an embedded understanding of public procurement and bid writing, ideally with a record of leading and writing successful tenders for major tenders for public services. It would be desirable of the candidate has an in depth understanding of the APMP certification structure and holds Practitioner or Professional level accreditation.
The candidate will have solid IT skills including Word, Excel, and Power Point. They will also have strong familiarity with salesforce, or a similar CRM system. The candidate will also have a full driving licence and access to their own vehicle.
Knowledge and expertise in the publicly funded employability, vocational learning, further education, justice services and/or recruitment markets is desirable, but not essential. We would nevertheless expect a successful candidate to be a quick study in these markets, with a good general understanding of public sector policy, to ensure ongoing credibility with clients.
The candidate brochure can be viewed below.
For a confidential discussion please contact our advisors Daniel Higgins (07800 524454 / daniel.higgins@bidrecruitment.com) of Bid Recruitment.
Closing date for applications is Sunday 10th January 2021.
Bid Recruitment has been exclusively retained for this campaign. All direct and third-party applications will be forwarded to them.
