Asked about his biggest achievement to date, Strafford replied: “I’m very proud of creating an organisation that the senior executives of some of the UK, US and Europe’s biggest blue-chip companies call upon when a deal really is ‘must-win’.
“We don’t advertise our services, but we’ve had several years in which our win-rate has literally been 100%, so the reputation we gain from being ‘winners’ secures our future business.
“Notable contracts amongst the 70 or so ‘mega-deals’ that I’ve worked on include winning the contract for a European company to provide the UK’s Passport, which caused rather a stir amongst some sections of the UK media!
“Other achievements have been winning a 20-year £2Bn deal for 4G/5G telecoms throughout the London Underground which includes providing gigabit connectivity in some of the most digitally deprived areas that’s anticipated to drive growth and create many new jobs in those areas. That same client was then selected to delivery Sunderland City Council’s 5G smart city partnership.
“On another deal it was very satisfying to see how transformation of the facilities at Portsmouth Naval Base is now delivering major environmental benefits, with new highly efficient power generation plant greatly reducing the carbon footprint and energy costs. I’m also super-proud of helping some Small/Medium Enterprises to win their largest ever contracts.”
Despite the success of the company, there have also been some challenges to BidPartners Ltd such as changes in government or recessions. Also, it is operating in a very fast paced and demanding environment in which it can be difficult to avoid burn-out.
Strafford explained: “We overcame the challenges by taking a proactive approach to spreading our work across different market sectors.
“Because our business, and our reputation, is all about ‘winning’, then a constant challenge is to remain one-step ahead of so-called ‘industry best practice’. Applying the same ‘best practice’ as the competitors inevitably just ends in a podium-place, and in a procurement there are certainly no prizes for second place. For that reason, I’m constantly challenging myself with ‘what can we do a bit better or smarter than everyone else’.
“We love the ‘buzz’ of working on a winning deal and get very passionate about outsmarting the competition in every aspect of the campaign. That can be very demanding and maintaining good mental health in our team is a recurring challenge in our business.
“The deals we work on are always ‘must-win’ and therefore highly stressful for all concerned. However, when our clients finish on a particular campaign their staff usually take time out to recover. For us, our work is done on that deal, and we potentially move into the next high-stress environment. It is a major challenge therefore to avoid burn-out; I consciously plan to follow an intensive final contract negotiation phase, poring over bid documents, financial models and legal contract schedules, with some early-stages strategy work on the next opportunity, where creative thinking comes back to the forefront.”
Strafford remembers with fondness the University that put him on the road to success and explained that he was attracted to studying at Sunderland because of its alignment to industry. Although Strafford’s strongest subject was Latin, he decided to take his A-levels related to electronics, his hobby at the time, as they presented better employment prospects.
For Strafford one of the most rewarding aspects of studying at Sunderland was the interaction with humanities and arts students and taking inspiration from their alternative ways of thinking.
He added: “That enabled me to see that a combination of engineering and creativity would often be the best approach to real-world problem solving. That has always helped me in my career – a lot of what I do today in helping our clients to ‘think outside the box’, whilst keeping their solutions underpinned with solid-well reasoned logic, is based on my experience at Sunderland.”
He also remembers some of his lecturers from the Engineering department who were very enthusiastic and inspirational, such as Eric Compton and Arthur West.
“Within the Engineering faculty, Eric Compton’s enthusiasm for the mathematics of Electromagnetic Field Theory was truly memorable. In my case, his enthusiasm was certainly more memorable than the differential wave equations!,” he said. “Arthur West was another great influence as a lecturer – his patience in laboratory sessions as we students fumbled with highly delicate silicon wafers, was quite remarkable.”
Strafford continued: “The biggest benefit of studying engineering at Sunderland was that it gave me a logical and systematic approach to problem solving. It’s been many years since I have actually been responsible for any ‘real’ engineering, although I regularly work with subject matter experts on highly technical contracts particularly in the aerospace and defence markets. The methodical problem-solving principles, with an input of creativity, that I learnt at Sunderland still apply to my approach to advising clients on their business relationships, commercial tactics, partnering, solution development and pricing strategies.”
Strafford’s advice to recent graduates entering the job market is to maximise the opportunities to gain working experience outside the classroom.
“My advice would be that there is a wide range of roles in industry, many of which don’t feature in academic courses, so if possible, spending some time in your early years gaining experience of working in different departments will enable you to find what genuinely excites you,” he said. “The recent trend to reduce in-office working has made it tough for recent graduates to get to know people outside their core team, so my advice would be to maximise whatever social or inter-company interactions are available. I would also encourage graduates to reach out to the seniors in the organisation and ask them about their role and how they got into that position; any good manager should be pleased to share their guidance with new members of the team.”
Finally, talking about his plans Strafford said: “Over the past 20 years of working at BidPartners we have seen many new influences in business – most recently the massive change in working patterns post-Covid. We’ve managed to embrace that change, and improve our own ways of working.
“As new trends emerge, I will actively work with my colleagues to stay ‘ahead of the curve’. Two examples we already see, for instance, are future AI-enabled tools becoming commonplace in business, and decision-makers demanding better measurement of the social value genuinely delivered on projects.
“I genuinely enjoy the challenge of adapting to future business dynamics, and I love being part of a winning team, so I plan to continue what we’re doing in that respect whilst bringing new talented people into the organisation and exploring new ways of working in partnership with other organisations who share our ethos.”