Sales Manager (Tendering)

This role is for one of Weekday’s clients

Salary range: Rs 1600000 - Rs 1800000 (ie INR 16 - 18 LPA)

Min Experience: 6+ years

Location: NCR

JobType: full-time

We are seeking a highly driven and detail-oriented Sales Manager - Tendering to own the end-to-end bid management lifecycle across defence, government, and enterprise opportunities. This role is critical in ensuring timely, compliant, commercially optimized, and high-quality proposal submissions that improve win rates, protect margins, and support annual order booking objectives. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in defence tendering, techno-commercial proposal management, and cross-functional stakeholder coordination. You will act as the central point of ownership for all bid-related activities, ensuring proposal quality, submission discipline, and effective collaboration across technical, finance, sales, business development, legal, and operations teams.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities

Bid Management & Proposal Ownership

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of RFI, RFQ, RFP, tender responses, and techno-commercial proposal submissions
• Ensure all proposals are complete, compliant, accurate, and aligned with customer requirements
• Manage proposal timelines from customer requirement freeze through final submission
• Ensure zero misses on customer submission deadlines

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Coordinate with technical, finance, sales, business development, legal, budget owners, OEM partners, and operations teams to gather inputs and drive proposal completion
• Manage bid schedules, dependencies, reviews, and approvals across stakeholders
• Ensure timely closure of action items and maintain proposal delivery discipline

Commercial Structuring & Margin Protection

• Drive commercial structuring and pricing strategies to maintain target gross profit margins
• Standardize costing assumptions, exclusions, commercial terms, and risk notes
• Support bid/no-bid qualification decisions and response strategies with sales leadership

Proposal Excellence & Win Rate Improvement

• Improve proposal turnaround time (TAT) while maintaining quality and compliance
• Develop compelling, customer-focused proposals with a high probability of success
• Track proposal outcomes and maintain bid performance metrics
• Monitor competitor pricing intelligence, market trends, and bid learnings to strengthen future submissions

Process Governance & Knowledge Management

• Maintain proposal repositories, templates, compliance matrices, and submission checklists
• Ensure proper version control and documentation governance across all bid activities
• Continuously improve bid processes to reduce rework, errors, and submission risks
• Establish best practices for proposal development and review cycles

Operations & Trial Support

• Extend documentation and proposal-related support to operations teams during customer trials, demonstrations, and evaluations
• Ensure technical and commercial documentation is maintained accurately throughout the customer engagement lifecycle

Qualifications & Skills

Education

• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Business Management, or a related discipline
• MBA preferred

Experience

• 6-10 years of experience in Bid Management, Proposal Management, Tendering, or Defence Sales Support roles
• Mandatory experience in defence, government, aerospace, homeland security, or strategic technology sectors
• Proven track record of managing complex techno-commercial proposals and tender submissions

Technical & Functional Skills

• Strong understanding of RFI, RFQ, RFP, tendering, and proposal management processes
• Experience in techno-commercial proposal preparation, costing, pricing, and bid strategy
• Strong commercial acumen with experience protecting margins and managing risk considerations
• Excellent proposal writing, documentation, and compliance management skills
• Experience managing multiple high-value bids simultaneously

Stakeholder Management

• Strong cross-functional coordination and stakeholder management skills
• Ability to influence teams and drive execution without direct authority
• Excellent communication, presentation, and negotiation skills

Mandatory Knowledge Areas

Working knowledge of:

• Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020)
• Defence Procurement Manual (DPM 2009)
• Government procurement and tendering frameworks
• Defence and public sector bidding processes

Key Success Metrics

• Proposal submission turnaround time (TAT)
• Bid win rate and conversion ratio
• Proposal quality and compliance adherence
• Gross margin protection on awarded contracts
• Zero missed submission deadlines
• Stakeholder satisfaction and coordination effectiveness
• Accuracy and completeness of techno-commercial proposals

Must-have skills

Bid Management, Proposal Management, Tendering

Good-to-have skills

RFI, RFQ, RFP