Role description
Role Summary
The Proposal Management Lead is responsible for leading a distributed team of proposal writers and managing end-to-end proposal operations for strategic bids. This role oversees intake, evaluation, assignment, development, and quality assurance of proposals to ensure timely, high-quality responses that align with customer needs and UST’s value proposition. The ideal candidate is a structured, collaborative leader with strong stakeholder management, business insight, and a track record in complex proposals.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and manage a high-performing team of proposal writers and coordinators across distributed locations.
- Set clear expectations, allocate workloads, and track delivery timelines to ensure on-time responses.
- Establish and maintain SOPs, templates, and best practices for consistent proposal development.
- Provide hands-on coaching, training, and mentorship to uplift team capability and performance.
- Review and triage incoming RFPs/RFIs/RFQs to assess scope, requirements, risk, and win potential.
- Assign the right Point of Contact (POC) for each deal based on domain expertise and capacity.
- Develop and manage proposal plans, schedules, compliance matrices, and content outlines.
- Coordinate cross-functional inputs from Sales, Solution Architects, Delivery, Legal, Finance, and Marketing.
- Own large and high-impact proposals, ensuring alignment to customer needs, buying drivers, and evaluation criteria.
- Articulate UST’s differentiated value proposition, case studies, and proof points in compelling narratives.
- Lead storyboarding, theming, and executive reviews to drive win strategy and message consistency.
- Support deal-level governance: gates, reviews, executive sign-offs, and risk/commercial considerations.
- Enforce consistency, accuracy, and compliance with customer instructions and organizational standards.
- Implement quality checkpoints (editing, formatting, pricing validation, legal/commercial compliance).
- Maintain a content library and ensure reusability of approved content, templates, and graphics.
- Act as the central facilitator between sales teams and delivery/solution teams.
- Manage expectations, negotiate timelines, and resolve issues to keep proposals on track.
- Present status, risks, and outcomes to leadership with clear, data-driven reporting.
Required Qualifications
- 12+ years of experience in Bid/Proposal Management, with 3–5 years in team leadership.
- Proven experience handling large, complex, multi-stakeholder proposals in IT services or consulting.
- Strong understanding of RFP/RFI lifecycles, compliance, and proposal best practices.
- Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to craft persuasive, customer-centric content.
- Proficiency with proposal tools (e.g., Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Teams, Word, PowerPoint, Excel), content libraries, and collaboration platforms.
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, Communications, or related field; APMP certification is a plus.
Core Skills
- Bid Management | Proposal Writing & Storytelling | Stakeholder Management
- Distributed Team Management | Project Planning & Scheduling | Quality Assurance
- Value Proposition & Differentiation | Risk & Compliance | Executive Communication
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- On-time proposal delivery rate (% of proposals delivered by deadline).
- Win rate and qualification-to-win conversion for targeted deals.
- Compliance score (formatting, instructions adherence, mandatory requirements).
- Proposal quality scores (internal/executive reviews; customer feedback where available).
- Cycle time reduction and efficiency metrics (e.g., reuse rate of approved content).
- Team capability uplift (training completion, content quality improvement, peer reviews).
Location: Trivandrum,Chennai,Kochi,Bangalore
Skills
About UST
UST is a global digital transformation solutions provider. For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world’s best companies to make a real impact through transformation. Powered by technology, inspired by people and led by purpose, UST partners with their clients from design to operation. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, UST embeds innovation and agility into their clients’ organizations. With over 30,000 employees in 30 countries, UST builds for boundless impact—touching billions of lives in the process.
