Bowen Consulting, a leading business growth consultancy based in the North East has built up a renowned reputation for helping their customers through strategic support, funding, recruitment and workforce development, but in turn needed some support of their own recently.
The company approached The Education & Skills Consultancy at the beginning of the year for some assistance in putting together winning tender documents, after they saw an opportunity to fill skills gaps in the North East and Yorkshire.
THE BRIEF
Bowen Consulting and its senior management team, was on the lookout for experienced bid writing consultants, to help them with a number of high profile tenders they had coming up for Apprenticeship grants and funding streams.
The company visited several skilled bid writing companies but felt The Education & Skills Consultancy offered more. They liked the fact we had a dedicated consultant to work with time and time again, who really understood the company, its aims and objectives. They also chose to work with us as we gave a more personal, bespoke service compared to others.
Andrew Bowen, Managing Director of Bowen Consulting added:
“I chose to work with The Education & Skills Consultancy as they really knew their industry. The information they provided was on a regular basis and I was kept up to date with their frequent email newsletter. This gave important and timely information on new tenders and supported funding.
“They came across as a market leader within their industry meaning I didn’t need to do the research, they did it all for me.”
Since February 2017, Bowen Consulting has appointed The Education and Skills Consultancy to embark on five large scale bid writing briefs for the NHS, Sheffield Council and Education Skills Funding Agency.
THE SOLUTION
The Education and Skills Consultancy created five bespoke tender documents for the Bowen Consulting team to submit.
Our skilled writers looked at the specific industry the tenders were for and adapted the style, tone and language of each to suit.
James Hart, The Education and Skills Consultancy Managing Director
“For each tender brief, we were given clear indications of what was to be included, the timeframes involved and other key information which enabled us to create the successful documents.
“We also advised what should be added to each tender knowing best practices and having knowledge across many sectors.”
Andrew Bowen added:
“The Education and Skills Consultancy team was great from start to finish. We were always kept informed and they worked well to deadlines. They offered advice on areas we needed to develop even further. These finishing touches really gave our proposals the wow factor and helped us stand out from the crowd during the tender processes.”
THE OUTCOME
The Education and Skills Consultancy supported Bowen Consulting with a direct contact to support Apprenticeships with large organisations. The NHS tender was successful and now means the Gateshead consultancy can offer Apprenticeship services for four years which has a procurement worth up to £2 billion a year.
The next tender was for a direct contract for the adult education budget which was also gained thanks to the support of The Education and Skills Consultancy.
Finally, The Education and Skills Consultancy assisted with a tender for Sheffield City Council’s Apprenticeship funding. The tender wasn’t successful on this occasion but did help make Bowen Consulting a finalist, ensured they were included in the top 5% of tenders received and enabled the company to reach the interview stage of the process.
The Education and Skills Consultancy helped make sure Bowen Consulting had the funding available to support future business growth in the North East and Yorkshire. We also supported the company with a funding strategy which enabled them to offer seamless funding support for employers looking to take on staff and to support them with their business growth.
Andrew Bowen, Managing Director of Bowen Consulting said: “The Education & Skills Consultancy team are experts in the funding field. I would highly recommend getting in touch with them to support your business.”
James Hart, Managing Director of The Education & Skills Consultancy said: It’s been fantastic working with a company with such large-scale expansion plans, and one that understood they needed support from a trusted bid writing consultancy like ours. We look forward to working closely with Andrew and his team moving forward.”
I found working with James to be very straight forward and effective. I have tried on 3 previous occasions to gain ROTO status and had obviously not understood some of the requirements. James took control and just asked me to provide straight forward information.
