I joined Bramble on a temporary basis over 3 years ago when Roland Cunningham was on secondment. Now I run the tendering team, managing all the Invitations To Tender (ITT) through frameworks. I tend to get involved with changes to T & Cs and helping partners answer what could be called ‘awkward questions’, and I'm always available to get as involved as the partners need me to be.
I started my career writing software and in 1987 I set up a business with a business partner. We were very young, we had offices in the City and we were lucky enough to secure investment from venture capitalists. It was very much a tech start-up scenario, and we were ahead of the curve in both the technology we were developing and in the way we ran the company. We didn't really consider the risks. Looking back I realise we had very few people to give us advice or help, and most people didn't understand what we were doing or why. Some even told us we should get 'proper' jobs!
Richard Archer was one of our first employees. He'd just graduated and was very fresh faced… but he seems to have done OK for himself! Then the dotcom bubble burst and 9/11 brought the business to a standstill. We had an entire year of no business, and that was really tough for us and the team. Nowadays I am very conventional and risk adverse, but the experience taught us all that it was possible to survive challenging times.
I became a consultant working for both the public sector and private companies like Capita. I enjoyed being a consultant and was good at it, I've always had the ability to explain things simply. It's a very useful talent, being able to understand what needs doing, explain how things work, and make the relationships between the ‘boxes’ and ‘arrows’ clear to the people tasked with making good decisions. What is interesting is that, all these years later, when people talk about the complex world we live in, I can clearly see how the concepts haven't really changed, it’s just that the technology has.
For around four years I worked as an Applications Architect for Transport for London (TFL), where I gained an excellent insight into how procurement worked, seeing it from the customer's perspective. It was also during this period that I bumped into Richard again, fortuitous since we needed someone to work on information architecture and he was the obvious choice.
During this period I also learned that whether you work in the public or private sectors it's all about buying the right thing at the right price!
After I left my final consultancy role, I found myself kicking my heels and catching up with old contacts. One of them was Richard. We then worked together on a really exciting project called Text Thing, a plain-text editor that reduces the cost and faff of writing, distributing and managing text in organisations. It was a brilliant experience, both developing the product and working with an international development team.
Back to my role at Bramble… Once we have reviewed a tender and think it's worth bidding for, we work closely with Jackie and Matt to match ITT requirements to partner capabilities. With the right partners on board we put in the tenders, and we enjoy a success rate of 1 in 3.
The team spends a lot of time managing purchase orders, putting together quotes, making changes to contracts and getting contracts signed. Fiona Harte is a valued member of our team. Her role is to reduce the risks we and our partners face, making certain contracts are both correct and fair.
Once a partner has a foot in the door with a customer, we can help them make further tenders through our frameworks.
A couple of organisations say they do a similar thing to Bramble Hub, but none of them provide the added value that we do. Our partners are very good at what they do and it’s our role to ensure they do what they are good at, and we do what we are good at! Many of our partners come to visit in person, keen to understand how we can help them through the tender process.
Because frameworks are all very different, we need really good insight into how they work. Some companies are on frameworks, which can be a huge advantage to them, but when you work with Bramble you get all the advantages without having to jump through the hoops. Our real USP, our most powerful message, is that we find a gateway for SMEs to interact with the public sector.
I love the fact that Bramble Hub looks at things we think are interesting, things that may make a real difference to the way a business develops. At the moment we are interested in the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it could be used in future by our customers and partners, something that's typical of the level of innovation behind our approach.
Neil’s Linkedin profile: Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/neilsimpsonlondon
Meet the Bramble Hub team: The Team