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The International Rescue Committee is a global humanitarian aid, relief and development nongovernmental organization.
Position Overview
The Pricing Advisor is a member of the Pricing team within Business Development in IRC’s Award Management Unit. They conduct and steer the development of impactful programs, conducting a thorough evaluation of the detailed cost drivers that contribute to the successful delivery of high-quality interventions within multi-year bids. This involves crafting comprehensive descriptions in both budgets and narratives for complex competitive bids. This position specializes in working with IRC's major donors, including USAID, FCDO, World Bank and the European Union, while also extending support to other donors when required. As a key member of proposal teams, this role collaborates closely with IRC Country Offices, Finance Department, and Technical Units to facilitate the development of cost proposals. The Pricing Analyst, provides essential guidance and technical assistance throughout the business development lifecycle, ensuring a delicate balance between cost recovery, risk mitigation, price competitiveness, and compliance with internal policies and donor regulations. This position entails various responsibilities, including estimating program costs, customizing budget formats, collecting, and certifying cost data, and negotiating budgets with partners. Additionally, the Pricing Analyst contributes to the improvement of budgeting guidelines and templates, cultivating collaboration with finance and compliance team across different organizational levels.
Responsibilities
Capture & Program Design
- Conduct extensive research and evaluation of cost drivers specific to each country, including aspects such as labor rates, employment regulations, travel expenses, training venue costs, operational cost, local inflation rates, procurement of equipment and supplies, and security requirements. This analysis strives to establish viable implementation approaches within the predefined cost constraints for forthcoming bids.
- Aggregate all budgetary details at the activity level, encompassing all anticipated interventions and necessary support provisions, into clear rough estimates. These comprehensive budgets should account for match arrangements and independent cost structures, aligning with the expected budget format and cost-narrative submission criteria.
Strategy & Proposal Development
- Review released solicitations to assess whether cost-related considerations might hinder the development of a competitive, compliant, and viable bid.
- Take charge of developing or modifying comprehensive tools sought at delivering high-quality cost and business application materials promptly. These tools encompass document checklists, partner document lists, and compliance matrices.
- Develop a comprehensive budget template or framework structure tailored to the specific proposal, along with the cost narrative. These tools should align closely with work plans and objectives. They should effectively showcase the competitiveness of pricing, fee arrangements, the feasibility of implementation, and the overarching strategy to secure the proposal successfully. When required, offer guidance and strategies for creating intricate budget templates (e.g., breaking down activities by desired outcomes) to present cost-related aspects most efficiently for each competitive proposal.
- Drive and/or ensure that pricing inputs from technical or other contributors are integrated effectively. Lead all aspects of detailed cost, and technical queries in anticipation of submission timelines.
- Collaborate in proposal design sessions to ensure that all cost drivers are adequately considered, drawing input from various collaborators, including staffing, management, different geographical locations, work plans, and targets at the activity level.
- Liaise partner and design sessions to gather and guide partner submissions, ensuring full compliance in line with client initiatives.
- Ensure adherence to IRC's standard processes and policies, as well as compliance with solicitation requirements and client policies across a variety of opportunities and donors.
- Integrate all partner pricing inputs into the consolidated budget, budget narrative, and cost application.
Job Qualifications:
- Degree (minimum BA) or equivalent experience in a relevant field such as public administration, business administration, management, economics, or similar.
- Proven knowledge of budget development and cost analysis, good practices; familiarity with project design methodologies, price-to-win approaches and proposal development processes is a plus.
- At least 3 years of professional experience, including experience with budget development of multi-million-dollar projects; international development, management and training experience is a plus.
- Demonstrates in depth understanding of USAID, UK FCDO or EU rules and regulations, particularly as they pertain to budget development; is able to identify donor-specific risks and design cost proposals in a way that mitigates those risks.
- The ability to work efficiently and accurately while under pressure in a fast-paced, demanding environment.
- Flexible work attitude: the ability to work in an inclusive team environment, independently and ability to meet unexpected demands.
- Demonstrates ability to collaborate effectively with colleagues in ‘remote’ and complementary teams.
- Ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively.
- Ability to travel internationally; (up to 20% of time).
- Ability to work autonomously and under remote management.
- Proficient in written and spoken English is required; French, Spanish or Arabic is highly desirable.
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Job Overview:
This Business Development Officer, filling a critical gap in Technical Excellence, will sit within the Grant Operations & Analytics Team (GOAT) and will be responsible for leading effective business development processes for highly complex global funding opportunities. The position collaborates closely with Technical Excellence program and grants teams, Country Program teams and IRC support departments like Finance and the Awards Management Unit to ensure that all proposals are developed and submitted in accordance with IRC and Donor policies.
Key Responsibilities:
Business Development (90%)
- Bid Coordination: Serve as the bid lead for Technical Excellence opportunities and coordinate with the Awards Management Unit (AMU) on opportunities with an AMU assigned bid lead
- Support the technical team in donor-specific program scoping in advance of anticipated calls, including pre-development of concept notes and donor feedback solicitations for specific programmatic elements/ideas
- Drive the proposal timeline forward, including HQ approval processes and submission
- Manage OTIS (Opportunity Tracking Information System) workflow for proposals
- Be responsible for the coordination with country programs and partners on documents needed
- Provide templates and guidance to program teams
- Lead on the coordination of reviews between technical units
- Work with AMU on potential institutional funding opportunities and solicitations
- Attend key cross-unit and cross-departmental meetings regarding business development
- Develop and maintain an in-depth understanding of Technical Unit funding streams and business development priorities
Proposal Budget development:
- Lead on the development of proposal budgets that reflect the technical design
- Develop proposal budgets to ensure consistency and accuracy across projects. Design, draft, refine, and finalize budgets and budget narratives (as needed) that are reflective of program design costs
- Ensure appropriate internal formats and donor formats for budget development are used
- Advise on the allowability of costs
- Guide supporting financial documentation for proposals in coordination with the HQ Finance Department, including annexes
- Coordinate with and support country program finance and grant staff on proposals, providing guidance and feedback on workplans, deadlines, and proposal parameters
- Secure approvals across departments for submissions
Proposal Development:
- Support the proposal development processes for TU-specific opportunities as required for multi-country, multi-Technical unit, and/or multi-region opportunities
- Support Unit technical staff in the development of proposals, including reviewing and contributing to concept notes, proposals and creating budgets ensuring donor and IRC compliance
- Track Technical Excellence’s pipeline for business development and assist with assigning business development (concept note, expressions of interest, proposal development) to Grants Managers
- Coordinate with GOAT staff to ensure visibility on all opportunities and the appropriate level of salary support in the post-award phase
Process Support and Feedback (10%)
- Go/No Go (GNG) Process: Working closely with the Sr BD Advisor and BD Coordinator, support on process changes in the Technical Excellence GNG processes, including the following:
- Support the collection of GNG inputs on live opportunities for appropriate next steps
- Support on KIIs with key staff when changes are being proposed
- Collect lessons learned from previous iterations of the GNG process
Key Working Relationships:
- You will report to: the Senior Business Development Advisor, GOAT
- Other Internal and/or external contacts:
- Internal: Regular contact with Technical Unit teams, GOAT Grant & Contract Mangers, GOAT BD Coordinator, BD Officer—Private Sector, and Country Program staff, the Awards Management Unit, Finance, Human Resources and Global Supply Chain.
- External: Interact with donors, vendors, contractors, and consultants.
Desired Qualifications:
- 3+ years of progressive work experience connected to business development and working in or closely with Technical teams
- Highly collaborative and pro-active colleague with a talent for delivering results with cross-functional groups
- Experience working with IRC systems is a plus
- Dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion, and a strong passion for our mission
- Comfortable adapting to new challenges and dynamic priorities, while maintaining professional grace
- Sophisticated Microsoft Office skills (Excel, PowerPoint) and experience with organizational information and financial systems
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in a multi-cultural environment
- University degree in Business Administration, Finance, International Development or a relevant field, or equivalent work experience
- Fluent in English; French, Spanish or Arabic language a plus
Working Environment
- Standard office working environment, flexibility to work remotely
- Workspace booked via a desk reservation system in an open-plan office when in person
- Limited travel expected
- This role may require working remotely full or part time depending on pandemic and public health changes