Tender Specialist

CooperSurgical is a leading fertility and women’s healthcare company dedicated to putting time on the side of women, babies, and families at the healthcare moments that matter most in life. As a division of CooperCompanies, we're driven by a unified purpose to enable patients to experience life's beautiful moments. Guided by our shared values – dedicated, innovative, friendly, partners, and do the right thing – our offerings support patients throughout their lifetimes, from contraception to fertility and birth solutions, to women’s and family care, and beyond. We currently offer over 600 clinically relevant medical devices to healthcare providers, including testing and treatment options, as well as an innovative suite of assisted reproductive technology and genomic testing solutions. Learn more at www.coopersurgical.com.

#LI

The role combines hands-on tender execution with project management, commercial support, risk assessment and data management. The Tender Specialist will create reliable visibility of the Italian tender pipeline; maintain complete, current and locally relevant tender documentation in Regional tender SharePoint; and ensure that tender and contract data for won, lost, partially won and no-bid opportunities are recorded consistently for operational follow-up and performance management.

Working closely with Sales, Equipment Sales, Clinical and Digital Application Specialists, Customer Experience, Regulatory Affairs, Pricing, Finance, Technical Service and other functions, the Tender Specialist will improve tender participation, submission quality, win rate, contract-value realization and public-market growth in Italy.

Tender monitoring, pipeline and pre-tender engagement

• Monitor Italian public tender sources and procurement platforms; identify relevant opportunities, renewals, market consultations and contract extensions early.

• Work with Italian sales team to develop and maintain a forward-looking tender and contract pipeline (12-18 months ahead), including expected publication dates, contract expiries, opportunities to index pricing on running contracts.  strategic value prioritisation, products/lots, incumbent suppliers, next actions and owners.

• Partner with Account Managers and Equipment Sales Managers to integrate tender planning into strategic public-account plans, ideally 12–18 months before publication.

• Work closely with Regional Tender manager to develop tender capabilities and optimizing tender engagement strategy, train and develop sales organisation capabilities in tender engagement and support commercial leadership with data on tender performance and forecasting for future tender opportunities. 

• Coordinate pre-tender engagement involving Sales, Clinical Application Specialists, Digital Application Specialists, Technical Service and other subject-matter experts to understand needs, position CooperSurgical solutions and reduce barriers to participation.

• Support sales team’s dialogue with procurement and relevant stakeholders to clarify or challenge disproportionate, discriminatory or exclusionary criteria through appropriate and compliant channels and to position  strategic products in upcoming tenders to optmize chance to win. 

Tender project management and submission

• Lead each tender as a cross-functional project, translating published requirements into a clear workplan, responsibilities, internal deadlines, risks and decision points.

• Analyze tender scope, lots, eligibility, award criteria, documentation requirements, contractual terms, submission method and key deadlines.

• Coordinate Go/No-Go assessment with Italian commercial leadership/sales team, bid strategy, product and lot selection, pricing approvals, required documentation, clarifications and final review.

• Work with Sales, Regulatory Affairs, Quality, Customer Experience, Pricing, Finance, Technical Service and other contributors to obtain accurate and approved inputs on time.

• Prepare and submit complete, accurate and timely responses through the relevant Italian procurement portals; preserve submission evidence and final tender records.

• Perform a final compliance review to reduce administrative exclusion, technical non-compliance and avoidable loss at tender and lot level.

Contractual review and risk management

• Review tender and draft-contract conditions, identify deviations from standard terms and assess commercial, operational, service, financial and compliance risks.

• Coordinate review and escalation of non-standard obligations with the appropriate internal stakeholders before commitment.

• Ensure equipment-related tender commitments are aligned with installation, maintenance, response-time and service-delivery capabilities.

• Maintain a clear record of accepted conditions, exceptions, clarifications, dependencies and implementation obligations.

Award, implementation and contract lifecycle management

• Record tender and lot-level outcomes, awarded products, prices, volumes, values, contract dates, extension options and reasons for wins, losses and no-bids.

• Coordinate structured handover of won tenders to Sales, Customer Experience, Finance, Supply Chain, Technical Service and other implementation owners.

• Support timely customer and pricing setup so sales can begin as soon as the contract becomes effective.

• Track actual sales and volume against contracted or customer-estimated value and identify underperformance, missed implementation steps or adoption gaps.

• Maintain renewal schedules and engage Sales teams sufficiently early to prepare retention and growth strategies.

• Track price-review and indexation opportunities, notice periods and contractual conditions; coordinate actions with Sales, Pricing, Finance and Customer Experience.

Data, documentation and performance management

• Own the quality and completeness of Italian tender data in relevant data capture systems including tender sharepoint

• Maintain the Italian tender documentation library, including administrative documents, local-language technical data sheets, certificates, clinical evidence, prior submissions, contracts and award information.

• Work with document owners to identify gaps, manage validity and ensure the latest approved version is available for use.

• Maintain structured data for tender, product/lot and contract performance reporting, including pipeline, participation, outcome, value, execution and renewal metrics.

• Prepare regular management updates, analyze tender outcomes and pricing data, and convert insights into practical improvement actions.

Cross-country collaboration

• Share Italian best practices and tender intelligence with the wider Tender Office.

• Provide occasional tender support outside Italy when required, applying common processes while respecting local legal, language and market requirements.

• Contribute to continuous improvement of templates, workflows, AI-enabled tools, reporting and tender governance.

Travel: 

• Job might require up to 30% of travel, to occasionally get in touch with relevant stakeholders or Purchasing Centers (Regions, Hospitals, Local Health, authorities)

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Structured, disciplined and effective working style, with the ability to manage multiple tenders and deadlines simultaneously.
• Strong project-management capability and confidence coordinating contributors across a matrix organization without direct authority.
• Excellent attention to detail, risk awareness and commitment to submission quality.
• Commercial mindset with the ability to connect tender work to participation, revenue, margin, customer strategy and market-share growth.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including structured data management, analysis, lookups, pivot tables and reporting.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 productivity tools and experience using digital collaboration and workflow tools.
• Experience using AI tools for document analysis, requirement extraction, data analysis, content management or productivity improvement.
• Ability to analyze tender outcomes, product/lot results and pricing data to identify patterns and improve future effectiveness.
• Working knowledge of SharePoint and Dynamics 365 CRM is beneficial but not required.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Italian and English.
• Proven experience in a matrix organization – preferably international

• Flexible, collaborative mindset and willingness to support tender activity outside Italy when required.

Essential Market & Platform Knowledge:

• Demonstrated knowledge of Italian public procurement and tender law, healthcare procurement practices and public submission requirements.
• Hands-on experience with Italian e-procurement portals and submission processes, including Consip / MePA and relevant regional platforms.
• Experience with third-party Italian tender monitoring and management services or platforms, including Telemat or comparable solutions.
• Ability to monitor legislative, administrative and platform changes and translate requirements into practical tender processes.
• Knowledge of medical devices, fertility, laboratory products or regulated healthcare markets is strongly preferred.

Experience:

• 3+ years of relevant experience in Italian public tenders, procurement, bid management, contracts or complex cross-functional project delivery.
• Experience in healthcare, medical devices, life sciences or another regulated industry is preferred.
• Proven experience preparing and submitting tenders through Italian public procurement portals is essential.
• Experience coordinating pricing, contractual review, technical documentation and cross-functional approvals is strongly preferred.

Education:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in business, public procurement management, supply chain and procurement management, public or commercial law, project management or a related discipline.
• Alternatively, substantial relevant tender, public-procurement or project-management experience supported by appropriate professional qualifications or diplomas.

As an employee of CooperSurgical, you'll receive a competitive total compensation plan. Your recruitment team will be able to share more information about any variable pay opportunity and benefit package that accompanies this role. The good faith estimate of the salary range for this role is 32.252 to 43.002 Euro annually. The actual amount offered is determined by a number of factors including but not limited to location, skills and experience.