Proposal Manager

We at Bohemia Interactive Simulations are a well-established company specializing in the development of world-leading, game-based military simulations for major NATO powers and their allies. Our mission is to advance the industry by leveraging the latest technologies and trends, including whole-world simulation, virtual reality, motion tracking, and AI.

The Proposal Manager is responsible for organizing and managing the company's written responses, including Requests for Proposals (RFPs), Requests for Information (RFIs) and white papers. The primary goal of this position is to secure business by submitting compelling, concise and compliant responses that meet both BISim's and the customers' requirements.

Key responsibilities include overseeing the proposal process, coordinating input from team members involved in the response, participating in writing assignments, and ensuring that all submissions adhere to the necessary guidelines. 

The Proposal Manager collaborates closely with various stakeholders involved in the capture and response process, including Business Developers (BDs), Solutions Engineering, Sales Operations, Legal/Commercial teams, and BISim executives.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Manage the Company Response Process: Ensure compliance from all bid team members throughout the response process.
• Create and Maintain Tools and Templates: Develop necessary tools, templates, and boilerplate texts for written responses, ensuring they are up-to-date. Suggest improvements to processes and quality, and share best practices across the team.
• Plan the Response Schedule: Establish timelines for writing stages, reviews, and approvals.
• Plan Response Structure: Collaborate with response personnel to devise the response structure and produce skeleton documents along with boilerplate text.
• Write Commercial Responses and Executive Summaries: Utilize input from the Business Development (BD) team to compose commercial responses and executive summaries.
• Facilitate Information Gathering: Starting from the Kick-Off Meeting and the Response Planning Document, work with the BD, Solutions Engineering (SE), and other staff to gather and capture essential information for the response. Use storyboarding techniques with the BD to visualize the response.
• Assign Sections to Team Members: Designate specific sections of the response to the appropriate personnel. Ensure the response team emphasizes Win Themes, Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), and Technical Discriminators.
• Manage Drafts and Reviews: Oversee the response process, ensuring that drafts and reviews are completed on time. Compile and assemble the full response in the required format.
• Obtain Approvals: Secure approvals for the response below the Executive level and pass the finalized response to the BD for final approval.

Objectives

• Response Leadership: This individual collaborates with internal teams to deliver BISim’s written responses successfully. They typically lead in managing these responses, guiding the Sales, Solution Architects, and Product Management teams to ensure accuracy, persuasiveness, and competitiveness. They are responsible for assigning sections of the responses to various team members and ensuring that the response team addresses key elements such as Win Themes, Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), and Technical Discriminators.
• Organization: Create and maintain necessary tools, templates, libraries, and boilerplates to ensure the information is up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate.
• Coordination: Coordinate with the Solutions Engineering and Sales teams for proposal kickoff meetings. Participate in these meetings to discuss response guidelines and assign sections to the bid team. Collaborate with teams to follow industry best practices for proposal development and work with the marketing and art departments to procure necessary graphics and images.
• Scheduling: Plan the response schedule, including writing stages, reviews, and approvals. Outline the response structure (with input from response personnel) and produce initial documents and boilerplate text. Facilitate and manage response efforts to ensure that drafts and reviews are completed on time.
• Response Process: Ensure adherence to the company’s response process and document it accordingly. Propose improvements as needed and disseminate best practices.
• Writing: Develop content for the non-technical sections of the proposal response, including staffing, management, resumes, and past performance.
• Compliance: Analyze commercial bid requirements and ensure that responses are compliant by maintaining a commercial compliance matrix. Gather all necessary compliance documentation, including insurance and financials.
• Finalization: Assemble response documents and conduct a thorough review to ensure the response is consistent, clear, properly formatted, and ready for submission.
• Tracking:: Track and report response data and win rates as required.

Skills 

• A proposal manager needs a blend of project management, writing, strategy, and communication skills to create winning proposals.
• Strong business writing skills, enabling the creation of persuasive and compliant proposals tailored to specific customer needs and evaluation criteria.
• Expertise in managing proposal timelines, deliverables, and deadlines while coordinating cross-functional teams, including sales, technical experts, legal, and finance.
• Experience in proposal lifecycle management, ranging from pre-RFP planning to submission.
• Ability to read and analyze RFP requirements to ensure full compliance and the skills needed to review and edit content to meet customer specifications.
• Strong collaboration with sales, product, and leadership teams to ensure alignment.
• An understanding of customer pain points, allowing for the alignment of solution proposals with knowledge of bid/no-bid decision-making processes.
• Attention to detail in proofreading for grammar, clarity, and consistency, as well as experience in proposal formatting and creating visuals, infographics, and executive summaries.
• Document management skills to organize and maintain content libraries, templates, and archives of past proposals.

Education and Experience

• A Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Over 10 years of proposal writing experience in the simulation industry, specifically for DOD (Department of Defense) and business-to-business sectors.
• Collaboration as part of a multi-disciplinary team focused on capture and proposal writing.
• Management of proposal writing processes and team collaboration.
• Knowledge of industry best practices in capture management, proposal writing, and management.

Travel

• Travel to/from the BISim/ BAE System Inc. office regularly (TBD, e.g., weekly or bi-weekly).