Empower Your Team. Win More Bids. Elevate Your Services
Certification: APMP Foundation & Practitioner
Accredited Training Organisation: BidCraft
The Challenge
Public services worldwide are under increasing strain, and the United Kingdom is no exception. These services play an essential, urgent, and irreplaceable role in every individual’s life. However, their scale and complexity bring significant challenges - particularly when it comes to ensuring they operate in a cohesive and streamlined manner.
At Amey, which employs over 12,000 people, aligning services and embedding best practice has been central to its transformation efforts. One critical area facing this challenge is the Bids and Proposal Team. For the team to be successful, they must not only understand the services provided, but also engage deeply with the needs of both the business and its users.
To gain clarity on internal capability and identify knowledge gaps, the team undertook a competency-based self-assessment aligned to the APMP (Association for Proposal Management Professionals) syllabus. This process enabled them to gauge perceived levels of competence across various bid and proposal functions and provided valuable insight into areas for development.
Having a shared understanding of best practice is the backbone of effective bid and proposal management. In an environment where services, user needs, technologies, and budget constraints are constantly evolving, relying on a proven framework can be the difference between success and failure. APMP best practices offer structured, efficient, and effective methods that support consistently high-quality outcomes.
Without such standards, teams risk stagnation, inconsistent results, repeated mistakes, and a lack of innovation - barriers that can prevent real progress and long-term growth.
Given the critical nature of their public services and their ambitious growth goals, Amey cannot afford these risks. The solution? Uniting the Bid and Proposal Team under the APMP framework to ensure consistent, professional, and best-practice-driven delivery.
The Solution
In short, the solution was the structured rollout of APMP best practice.
APMP offers a comprehensive Body of Knowledge, built on the collective experience and insights of bid and proposal professionals worldwide. While the depth of content is extensive, training is key to helping teams absorb and apply these best practices effectively.
To support adoption, Amey invested in team development by enrolling members of the Bid and Proposal Team in APMP Foundation and Practitioner certification programs. These certifications equip professionals with the skills to create persuasive, customer-focused proposals and to lead collaborative teams that consistently deliver winning strategies. In the context of public services, this translates into more compliant, value-driven, and outcome-focused bidding - ultimately enhancing service delivery and performance.
To minimise disruption and maximise engagement, Amey enrolled 12 team members in BidCraft’s online eLearning platform – the BidCraft Academy. The flexibility of digital delivery allowed the team to upskill at their own pace without impacting day-to-day operations.
Importantly, because the team had already participated in a self-assessment exercise, individuals were more engaged with the training journey. Amey recommends involving staff early – consulting them on their needs and tailoring learning opportunities accordingly to ensure relevance and buy-in.
The training provider, BidCraft, was described as:
“Reliable and modern, with good use of digital delivery tools.”
Feedback on the training experience was overwhelmingly positive from all participants, reinforcing the value of aligning professional development with recognised best practices.
The Impact
Amey is now proud to report that the majority of its Bid and Proposal Team is certified to the appropriate level for their role. This achievement not only elevates individual capabilities but also enables the team to share their knowledge more widely - creating a ripple effect of positive impact across the organisation.
Certification has brought a new level of consistency in both knowledge and approach, helping to embed best practices across the business. Just as importantly, it has boosted the confidence of team members, empowering them to carry out their roles more effectively and with greater assurance.
In the words of Jeff Hill, Work Winning Director at Amey:
“We are now a strong team, with solid foundations built upon APMP best practice. We are ready for whatever bidding challenges are thrown at us!”
This growing confidence extends beyond the team, influencing key public services and contributing to a culture of professionalism and capability. As reflected in additional quotes from APMP professionals in APMG’s article about what Proposal Managers do.
Testimonial
“I’m delighted with the work we have done with Bid Craft to upskill our team in Bids and Proposals best practice. The ease of access and method of delivery were both well received by our team. Over the past few years, we have recruited a lot of new people with varied backgrounds and experiences of bidding for different organisations in different sectors. The APMP training and certification gave me the assurance that our team would have a common understanding of what good looks like and a shared approach to delivering best practice bidding processes. The results speak for themselves.”
Jeff Hill
Work Winning Director – Amey
