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