Business Growth – BEARs

BEARs managing director, Ali Hashim originally got in touch with Bespoke Bids in 2019 as the bids they were facing were becoming larger, more complex and ultimately more time consuming for him and his senior management team.

In our opening meeting, it was clear to us how much passion Ali has for both his industry and business, but also how busy he was operating a successful, fast-paced business. Ali has an ambitious growth strategy for BEARs and winning tenders was a core element to support the growth.

His main requirement on top of quality, was flexibility, and he wanted us to work closely with his management team to develop tender responses to match the tender requirements and the optimum BEARs solution.

BEARs offer complex ambulance services for the likes of high dependency units (HDUs) and mental health/secure units. The services include vehicle provision (3^rd party design/manufacture, provision, maintenance); scheduled and emergency journeys, staffing and training, journey booking/call handling systems.

Challenge

The challenge for Bespoke Bids was that each response involved a complex solution of provision and maintenance of vehicles, highly trained staff to meet NHS Trust requirements and different journey types, complex routes and journey planning. There were significant variations between each Tender which needed to be considered when responding.

As every bid we respond to is different, we have developed a process which works for everyone. We initially hold a structured win/response strategy session with the BEARs team where we agree on the best way to respond from a service delivery perspective (BEARs) and a bid winning perspective (Bespoke Bids).

We then develop initial drafts based on our understanding of the service, before responses enter a collaborative review process where we refine and finalise the drafts to match the optimal BEARs solution. 

We are now valued as an extension of BEARs’ business development team, working closely with Ali and his Operations Director, Claire. Over our four-year relationship, we have completed 15 bid projects, learning from each one to optimise quality and deliver a service which works for BEARs.

Result

BEARs have doubled in size in each of the last two years. Our most recent win together was for Barts Health NHS Trust in October 2022. On contract award they were also asked to take on a secondary contract for Barts.