Avanade
Website:
avanade.com
Job details:
Role Summary
Avanade India is looking for a Pre-Sales Bid Manager to run our pursuits from first qualification to signed contract. This is the person who owns the bid — the plan, the calendar, the win themes, the response, the pricing inputs and the stakeholders — so that solution architects and sales leaders can focus on the client and the solution while the bid itself runs on time and to a high standard.
You will manage multiple RFPs, RFIs and proactive proposals at once, working across sales, solution architects, delivery, finance, legal, Microsoft and partner teams. We expect you to use Gen AI tools as a core part of how you work — to analyse RFPs, draft and reuse content, check compliance and produce stronger responses in less time — and to bring that way of working to the teams around you. Knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem is a significant advantage, as most of our pursuits are built on it.
Key Responsibilities
- Own end-to-end bid management for assigned pursuits — from lead qualification and bid/no-bid decision through response, orals, negotiation support and deal closure.
- Run the bid qualification process: gather opportunity intelligence, assess fit and win probability, and prepare the bid/no-bid case for leadership.
- Build and run the bid plan — timelines, owners, review gates, internal deadlines and a clear RACI across contributors.
- Analyse RFPs and RFIs in detail — requirements, evaluation criteria, commercial and contractual terms — and maintain the compliance matrix and clarification log.
- Define win themes, value propositions and differentiators with sales and solution leads, and make sure they run through every section of the response.
- Coordinate solution architects, delivery leads and subject-matter experts to produce the solution, approach, plan, team structure and assumptions on time.
- Work with finance and the deal team on price modelling — effort and resource-based pricing, fixed price, time and materials, managed services and outcome-based models — including rate cards, margin, contingency and commercial assumptions.
- Manage risk, legal and contractual review with legal, compliance and delivery assurance teams, including deviations, terms and risk registers.
- Use Gen AI tools across the bid lifecycle — RFP summarisation and requirement extraction, first-draft generation, content reuse from the proposal library, compliance checking, editing and consistency review — while owning the accuracy and quality of what goes out.
- Build and maintain a reusable proposal content library — case studies, credentials, CVs, boilerplate and approach sections — structured so both people and AI tools can use it well.
- Engage external stakeholders — clients, Microsoft account and partner teams, third-party partners and subcontractors — for clarifications, joint positioning, co-sell and partner inputs.
- Produce the final response to a high standard — structure, writing, formatting, graphics and executive summary — and run the quality reviews (pink, red and gold team or equivalent) before submission.
- Prepare the team for orals, demos and clarification meetings — storyboards, presentation decks, rehearsals and Q&A preparation.
- Support negotiation and closure — BAFO responses, commercial revisions, SOW and contract finalisation — through to handover into delivery.
- Track pursuit pipeline, status and outcomes in CRM, run win/loss reviews, and feed lessons learned back into the bid process and content library.
Qualifications
- 8–12 years of experience in IT services, with at least 5 years in bid management, proposal management or pre-sales.
- Proven end-to-end bid management experience — owning complex RFP/RFI responses and proactive proposals from qualification through to closure.
- Clear understanding of the full pre-sales lifecycle: lead, qualification, bid/no-bid, solutioning, pricing, response, orals, negotiation, contracting and handover to delivery.
- Hands-on use of Gen AI tools (for example Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or proposal tools such as Loopio, Responsive or Qvidian with AI features) to improve bid productivity, with a clear view of where they help and where human review is essential.
- Working understanding of price modelling in IT services — pricing constructs, rate cards, effort-based pricing, margin, contingency and commercial risk — and the ability to work with finance on the deal model.
- Proven ability to coordinate internal stakeholders across sales, solutioning, delivery, finance and legal, and external stakeholders including clients, partners and vendors.
- Strong skills in RFP analysis, compliance management, bid planning and running review gates to deadline.
- Excellent business writing and editing — able to turn technical input into a clear, persuasive, client-focused response and executive summary.
- Strong presentation skills in PowerPoint, Word and Excel, and comfort producing polished proposal documents under time pressure.
- Ability to manage several concurrent bids, prioritise effectively and hold contributors to commitments without direct authority.
- Good understanding of IT services offerings — application development, cloud, data, AI, business applications and managed services.
Preferred / Good To Have
- Knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem and technologies — Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Fabric and Copilot — and how they are positioned and sold.
- Experience with Microsoft partner programmes and motions — co-sell, Microsoft funding and incentive programmes, and partner solution positioning.
- Experience in a Microsoft partner, consulting, global delivery or SI environment (Avanade, Accenture, or similar).
- Bid or proposal management certification — APMP Foundation or Practitioner, or equivalent.
- Experience with CRM and pursuit tracking tools such as Dynamics 365 Sales or Salesforce.
- Experience building AI-assisted bid processes — prompt libraries, Copilot agents or automated content retrieval for proposal teams.
- Experience with public sector, BFSI or large enterprise procurement processes and formal tenders.
- Graphic or visual storytelling skills for proposals and orals.
- Experience with pursuits across India and the wider APAC region.
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