Sapphire Utility Solutions

How did you first hear about Thornton & Lowe?

We previously had experience of working with another similar bid consultancy but a number of factors led us to look around for an alternative.

Initially, we used Thornton & Lowe to source a member of the bid team but as the workload increased, they suggested the option of a bid partnership, essentially with Thornton & Lowe providing a tailored solution to our needs and fully outsourcing our bid management team. This was a clear statement of commitment from Thornton & Lowe and one that we greatly appreciated and have since benefited from.

What have you been most impressed with?

The whole process - from the contact we have at a partnership level with the Directors through to our account managers and administration staff, all of our contact points are fully up to speed with Sapphire’s processes and procedures. We have also been really impressed with Tom Daniel and his bid team, the structure that they’ve set out for all of our bid work; creating templates, organising corporate documents to be produced with Thornton & Lowe’s designer and massively increasing the quality of our written content and overall aesthetic. We’ve now been successful in securing over £50m of new projects through Thornton & Lowe in 2020/21, with much more in the pipeline!

We have also been using Thornton & Lowe’s Search & Selection service, provided by Emma McCarroll and effectively outsourcing our bid administration process. Emma now actively searches for opportunities on our behalf, as well as managing our content databases, CVs, boilerplate responses and any additional administration. This is of huge benefit to us, as it allows us to focus on growth and our day-to-day activities.