A proposal coordinator is a critical position in many sales companies. Duties include collecting data from a variety of contributors across multiple departments or functional areas, formatting proposals according to submission requirements, tracking deadlines and monitoring the status of submitted proposals. A proposal coordinator may be dedicated to the job in a large company or, in a smaller company, may have additional functions. The coordinator is often a member of the sales team, but might also be part of the marketing or business development departments.
Any company that sells something, be it a product or service, will need to write proposals. This might be in response to a request for pricing or might simply be a proactive attempt to earn business. Some proposals are fairly simple and include only basic information such as a list of deliverables, terms and pricing. Other proposals, particularly those for large, complex jobs, are quite long and require the assembly of a lot of information.
Regardless of the degree of complexity, each proposal must be developed before it can be presented to the customer. This is where a proposal coordinator comes in. His job is to review the requirements of each proposal and develop a document that meets all of those criteria.
One of the primary duties of a proposal coordinator is assembling pricing. This might include calculating product and service pricing, taxes, shipping charges and more. In most cases, the coordinator is not responsible for generating the pricing or determining markups, but is rather responsible for obtaining pricing information from the appropriate party or parties and putting it into the proposal.
Other types of information must also be placed in some proposals. When responding to a bid request, for instance, a proposal must include all information specified by that request. This can include information on credit ratings, subcontractor usage and references. Bids might also require that supporting documentation, such as proof of insurance, be included with the bid response. The proposal coordinator will be responsible for collecting all required data from areas such as accounting, risk management, operations and purchasing for developing the bid response document.
In many cases, a proposal coordinator is responsible for managing a proposal time frame. This can include reminding contributors when information is due and following up when information is not received. It also means ensuring that proposals are delivered by the due date. Some proposal coordinators also keep track of proposals that have been submitted and document which are accepted and which are rejected.