Valtech - Presales/Bid Manager

Job Description :

We are looking for an experienced Presales Manager / Bid Manager to lead and orchestrate complex, multi-service pursuits end to end across the Retail, Luxury Retail, and Omnichannel domains. Working in close liaison with onsite, sales, and delivery teams, the role owns qualification, quality, governance, and the commercial and contractual soundness of RFI/RFQ/RFP responses, builds reusable presales capability, and enables the organization to run multiple concurrent bids at scale without disrupting delivery. It spans the full pursuit lifecycle - from bid/no-bid through orals, negotiation, and clean transition to delivery. This is a senior, hands-on leadership role blending bid orchestration, solution, commercial and risk governance, responsible use of AI, team leadership, and pipeline enablement.

Key responsibilities :

- Lead RFI, RFQ, and RFP responses across the full pursuit lifecycle - planning, coordination, governance, and execution.

- Run bid kick-offs, review gates, and win-strategy sessions; drive on-time, compliant, high-quality submissions.

- Define bid plans, roles, timelines, and risk/compliance checkpoints for each pursuit.

Bid qualification and deal governance :

- Own the bid/no-bid decision using a structured qualification scorecard (strategic fit, win probability, risk, and delivery capacity).

- Run deal review and approval governance - margin, discount, and risk gates with finance, legal, delivery, and leadership sign-off.

Proposal leadership and integration :

- Consolidate technical, business, and commercial inputs into cohesive, executive-level proposals.

- Craft compelling win themes, value propositions, and executive summaries aligned to client priorities.

- Ensure narrative consistency, quality, and storyline across all proposal artifacts.

Commercial, estimation, and billing governance :

- Build and challenge effort estimates, pricing structures, and commercial models aligned to solution strategy.

- Shape deals across billing models -Time & Materials (T&M), Fixed Price, and Hybrid -and advise on the right mix per engagement.

- Partner with finance, delivery, and legal on margins, risk, deal shaping, and approvals; ensure commercial governance and sign-off.

Contract and commercial risk management :

- Review MSAs, SOWs, and terms; flag liability, IP, SLA/penalty, warranty, and data-protection risks in coordination with legal.

- Advise on currency, tax, and multi-geography commercial nuances for global engagements.

Orals, negotiation, and client presentations :

- Prepare and coach pursuit teams for client presentations, orals, and best-and-final-offer (BAFO) rounds.

- Support negotiation strategy, objection handling, and deal close.

Presales asset development :

- Maintain a reusable library of proposal assets, case studies, estimation models, and accelerators.

- Standardize templates and content to improve quality and reduce turnaround time.

Responsible AI in bid management :

- Use GenAI and proposal-automation tools (e.g., Proposal AI) for first drafts, content search, and compliance checks, always with human review.

- Enforce data-confidentiality guardrails when applying AI to client, commercial, and security information.

Pipeline visibility and governance :

- Maintain opportunity tracking and pursuit governance to support proactive growth planning.

- Provide accurate pipeline reporting, dashboards, and pursuit health to leadership.

- Prioritize pursuits based on qualification, fit, and win probability.

Win/loss intelligence and bid analytics :

- Capture market insights, competitive intelligence, and structured win/loss feedback.

- Track win rate, cycle time, and pursuit cost to run bid management as a measured function.

- Translate learnings into improvements to strategy, assets, and future pursuits.

ESG, security, and compliance response :

- Coordinate sustainability/ESG, information-security, and compliance questionnaire responses within proposals.

- Maintain approved, current content for recurring due-diligence requirements.

Parallel bid capability :

- Enable scalable management of multiple concurrent RFPs without impacting delivery teams.

- Balance capacity, sequence pursuits, and deploy shared presales resources effectively.

Transition to delivery :

- Ensure a clean bid-to-delivery handover so proposal commitments are deliverable.

- Capture assumptions, dependencies, and risks for the delivery team.

Partner program and compliance management :

- Manage partner program operations (e.g., Oracle OPN or equivalent): deal registrations, compliance tracking, and certifications.

- Maintain partner status, benefits, and audit readiness in coordination with alliance teams.

Team leadership :

- Build presales maturity across Business unit.

Domain expertise :

- Retail and Luxury Retail.

- Omnichannel commerce and customer experience across online and store.

Technology exposure :

- E-commerce platforms and digital commerce.

- Salesforce multi cloud, Salesforce Commerce cloud etc.

- Oracle POS and other point-of-sale / retail systems.

- Broader retail technology landscape (order management, CRM, integration, cloud).

Delivery methodologies :

- Agile, SAFe (Scaled Agile), Kanban, Lean, and Hybrid frameworks.

Delivery streams :

- Development / build engagements, Managed Services (L1,L2 & L3 Support) and Test Factory-QA.

Presales tooling :

- Responsive (formerly RFPIO), RFP360, and Proposal AI or equivalent RFP/proposal-automation platforms.

- Content-library management and AI-assisted response generation with human oversight.

Required experience and qualifications :

- 15+ years of overall experience, with substantial time in presales, bid management, or solution consulting within IT services, consulting, or technology.

- Demonstrated track record leading large, complex, multi-tower RFI/RFQ/RFP pursuits and winning strategic deals.

- Experience owning bid/no-bid qualification and deal-approval governance.

- Strong experience in effort estimation, pricing, and deal shaping across T&M, Fixed Price, and Hybrid models.

- Exposure to contract and commercial risk review (MSA/SOW terms, liability, IP, SLAs, data protection).

- Track record supporting orals, BAFO negotiations, and clean transition to delivery.

- Domain exposure to Retail, Luxury Retail, and Omnichannel programs.

- Proven ability to work across onsite, sales, delivery, finance, and legal stakeholders in a global environment.

- Experience building and leading presales/bid teams and establishing governance and reusable assets.

- Familiarity with partner ecosystems and program management (Oracle OPN experience is a strong plus).

- Bachelor's degree required; MBA or equivalent business qualification preferred.

Skills and competencies :

- Executive-level written and verbal communication; strong proposal writing and storytelling.

- Commercial and financial acumen; comfortable with estimation models and billing structures.

- Contract and risk awareness in partnership with legal.

- Data and analytics literacy - win rate, cycle time, and pursuit-cost metrics.

- Responsible, guardrail-aware use of AI and proposal-automation tools.

- Orchestration under pressure across multiple concurrent deadlines.

- Executive presence, stakeholder influence, and cross-cultural collaboration across sales, delivery, and C-level.

- Analytical mindset for qualification, win/loss analysis, and pipeline governance.

- Attention to detail on compliance, quality, and governance.

Preferred certifications :

- Bid or proposal management certification (e.g., APMP).

Success in this role (indicative KPIs) :

- Improved win rate, turnaround time, and proposal quality.

- Disciplined qualification - the right pursuits chosen, poor-fit deals declined early.

- Scalable parallel pursuit management with no adverse impact on delivery teams.

- Mature, reusable presales asset library and estimation models in active use.

- Accurate, well-governed pipeline visibility and pursuit reporting.

- Strong contract-risk hygiene and partner program compliance.