Assistant Bid Manager

Location: Manor Royal Crawley, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

What the Role Has to Offer:

UWS is growing at a rapid pace. Due to the success of programmes within UWS and with a portfolio of world leading products both in conventional systems and in new technologies (maritime autonomy), this has led to an extensive prospect list, consisting of a significant number of strategic bids.

This role is an opportunity to assist on major bids that are critical to the long term strategy of UWS and Thales, and lead on lower value bids. You will be working as part of an established team in one of the most exciting areas of the business with a great opportunity to get a wide overview of the business.

Primary Purpose of the Role:

The purpose of this role is to provide support to delivery of Bids within the UWS domain, involving bid management activities across any of the anti-submarine, mine warfare, future capabilities or post-contract support sectors. The role is to ensure that the Initial Project baseline for Project execution (post contract award) is robust, with an appropriate level of confidence that customer and business expectations will be met.

Principal Relationships:

• Capture Leads
• UWS Head of Bid and Project Management
• Bid Team: PM-designate, SEM, PDA, Project Controls, Quality Assurance Manager, WPM/CAMs or Estimators
• Portfolio Leads
• Functions contributing to the preparation of the offer and the Initial Project Baseline, in particular Engineering, Industry, Procurement, Finance, Legal & Commercial, Quality, IT/IS, HSE, Security (inc. Cyber)

Key Responsibilities and Tasks:

• Exhibiting the Leadership at Thales model behaviours
• Assistance to help embed a strong sense of delivery accountability and a proactive risk and opportunity management culture at all levels of the bid team
• Assistance with creating and controlling the bid schedule and resource plan; leading and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to achieve key milestones
• Providing input to ensuring the creation of robust initial project baselines for delivery post-contract award
• Supporting the management of customer, supplier and partner relationships – building trust and confidence through open dialogue
• Providing input and coordination of proposal development, including the use of colour/peer reviews as appropriate
• Ensuring cross-functional alignment, both in terms of support to bid delivery and clear commitment to the as-bid Initial Project baseline
• Ensuring appropriate focus on CASH management and achieving a positive net cash profile associated with the Initial Project baseline
• Promoting and enabling left-shifting e.g. solutions options and selection, make/team/buy decisions, Project execution strategies
• Assistance with creating initial project plans for the execution of the contract as required for the proposal
• Establishing and maintaining the bid data repository; ensuring migration to the future project data repository as part of a managed handover to the project execution team
• Ensuring that all bid activities comply with the relevant Thales Chorus 2 processes
• Supporting ad-hoc duties that will be consistent with the nature of a bid manager position within Thales
• Assistance and input to management and control of bid budgets for all Bids within their working perimeter and liaison with PMO to reflect in appropriate tools.

Experience:

• Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Good English and grammar skills for writing presentations and proposals
• Awareness of technical and non-technical requirements on complex bids and/or projects.

Skills:

• Experience in a bid and/or project context, including the ability to adapt personal style to achieve the desired results
• Strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills with written presentation and report writing skills
• Organisation and analytical skills
• A positive attitude combined with excellent interpersonal and motivational skills.

Qualifications:

• Professional project management qualifications - IPMA and/or APMP membership or equivalent.

Security Clearance statement:

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires Security Clearance (SC). It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment.

What we can offer:

We are committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry.

Flexibility:

Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times.

The Work Environment:

At Thales, we believe in flexible SMART working and have the expectation this role will be delivered through a combination of remote and office based collaborative working. When working in the office, you will be based at the largest Thales site in the UK, featuring access to a wide variety of resources including manufacturing, environmental and electromagnetic test facilities and specialised laboratories.

Benefits at Thales:

• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00pm
• Pension Scheme
• 28 days annual leave (Plus Bank Holidays)
• Life Cover
• Progression and Development Opportunities
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers

Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity and inclusion are integral to the success of Thales.

Great journeys start here, apply now!