A Good Year for Executive Compass® Bid Writers

In April Adam Hartley was hired as the new Head of Marketing and Communications, managing all marketing efforts on and off-line. In recognition of his hard work, John Bilcliffe was promoted to Bid Team Manager, managing the output and quality of the bid team working from the Executive Compass® Head Office on a daily basis alongside Neil, the company director. During September Neil and Luke O’Neill (Lead Bid Writer), also took to the streets, completing the Great North Run for charity, and settling an office score (Neil won).

Shortly after the run, Neil was contracted onsite for a large nuclear decommissioning bid for six weeks, before leaving for the Himalayas to complete the 100 mile marathon over the course of a week. This left the remaining team members to manage what is typically the busiest season of the year for tenders, successfully completing 47 PQQs and tenders during his absence, for an increasingly diverse client base.

Through Neil’s numerous charitable runs over the year, Executive Compass® have successfully raised over £4,500 for Sense, a national deaf blind charity. This will continue into the New Year with Neil currently planning on entering the Ocean Floor Race, a non-stop footrace of 160 miles across the white desert in Egypt.

At the beginning of the year, we had one ongoing bid manager placement with a large environmental solutions company and both Neil Capstick, company director, and another bid writer were placed into a domiciliary care provider in Scotland to write a large local authority tender in early February.

In March we recruited a new Head of Marketing and Communications, Adam Hartley, to assist with both our online and offline presences and to help establish the Executive Compass® brand as the leading provider of PQQ, bid and tender management and writing services in the UK.

Shortly after Adam started with us, we also welcomed a new client who has retained our services on an annual basis, to complete all their PQQs and tenders for the provision of cleaning and grounds maintenance services. We have currently helped them to secure three new contracts through the OJEU process, with one PQQ and four further tenders currently pending result, all in the space of nine months.

Bid & Tender Writing

In April we began working alongside a large care provider in the North West who not only had a number of new tenders they wished to pursue but also had to contend with many of the current contracts they held being retendered, and restructured. These contracts had been heavily streamlined to reduce the number of care providers to each local authority, with between five and eight providers where previously there had been dozens, meaning competition was even more intense.

Through engaging our services our client has retained their contract providing domiciliary care to the local authority and they are eagerly waiting the result of the second tender. Completing both tenders was a very demanding process, requiring two writers to conduct interviews of key staff members to ensure that we had the necessary level of information to produce a winning tender submission. Each tender required in excess of 20,000 words of narrative responses and some out-of-the-box thinking by both parties to ensure that high quality, innovation and added value were demonstrated throughout.

Earlier this year we also celebrated the win of an access and insulation services framework contract to nuclear sites throughout the UK worth a potential £380 million. This was one of the most demanding tenders we worked on this year, requiring three writers working on site Monday to Friday for seven weeks, with an additional writer working remotely from our Head Office.

2014 looks to be an even busier year, with more and more companies looking to improve their tendering performance through the assistance of Executive Compass®, as the economy steadily improves. We are constantly improving our ways of working and expanding to ensure that we can continue to be the UK’s leading provider of PQQ, bid and tender writing and management services, and meet increasing demand from all corners of the country and across all industries.