Securing a Win on Europe's ‘Project of the Century’ Through Agile and Culturally Astute Bid Leadership
At a glance
✔︎ Rapidly mobilised and delivered a winning bid strategy within weeks for a highly complex international Rail Baltica Alliance contract.
✔︎ Successfully navigated a multicultural environment, helping forge a cohesive bidding alliance involving stakeholders from 5+ countries and circa 10 nationalities.
✔︎ Led intensive, creative collaboration workshops (online and co-locating in France) to unify diverse teams, define the alliance approach, and refine solutions.
✔︎ Overcame significant time pressures and late-stage engagement to produce a high-quality, successful submission for a complex design, build, and maintain alliance.
✔︎ Achieved a third consecutive win for our client, who expressed extreme satisfaction with our flexibility and consistent quality in shaping their winning alliance proposal.
Highlights
Our customer: Bouygues France
End-client: Rail Baltic Estonia
Project value: Part of a circa €5B investment
Submitted: December 2024
Sector: High-speed rail transport infrastructure
Contract scope of works: Design, construction, and commissioning of high-speed railway, encompassing all associated civil works, and securing necessary permits within a collaborative Alliance framework.
Location (Project & Our Team Collaboration): The project spans Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Our team coordinated efforts across these regions, plus France and the UK.
Services provided: Strategic bid leadership, late-stage tender rescue, international team & SME coordination, collaborative workshops, rapid response bid writing, and solution development for alliance delivery models.
Did we win? Yes – our third consecutive win for this client.
a Multinational Alliance for The ‘Project of the Century’
Rail Baltica is a monumental greenfield project integrating Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into Europe's rail network. It features an 870km eco-friendly, high-speed electric railway connecting key cities. Approached by Bouygues France late in a critical tender, we faced unexpectedly complex criteria and a mere several-week deadline to deliver a winning bid.
The international challenge involved designing a winning pre-award alliance. We swiftly managed a diverse team (~10 nationalities, 5+ countries), where multicultural agility was vital. For instance, we discovered that the humble organisational chart wasn't so universal after all; an Estonian perspective on team structure differed notably from French or UK norms, requiring plenty of collaborative discussion and a flexible approach to get everyone on the same (graphical) page.
Our team thrived, managing complexities such as time zones and corporate practices while integrating alliance principles into the core bid narrative. To foster collaboration, we utilized creative tools like Miro for live brainstorming and co-located in France for dynamic workshops, refining drafts, and building key SME relationships.
This resulted in a winning bid—our third consecutive success for Bouygues. The client praised our rapid response, adaptability, and ability to craft a winning alliance proposal under pressure, leading to discussions on future collaborations.