UK Enterprise Awards 2026 / 84 Best Bid Writing & Tender Strategy Consultancy 2026 Ocean City Bids is a specialist bid consultancy with a particular expertise in health and social care, dedicated to delivering high-quality, results-driven support to organisations looking to win and retain business through competitive procurement. Working as an extension of its clients’ teams, it blends strategic insight with handson delivery to improve bid performance, strengthen processes, and drive long-term success. Underscoring this is an unwavering commitment to quality, excellence, consistency, integrity, transparency, and continuously improving the capability of its clients’ bids. We speak to Founder and Managing Director, Shaun Ford to learn more about Ocean City Bids’ award-winning offering. “At Ocean City Bids, we strive every day to help our clients win the right opportunities, in the right way, while building stronger, more sustainable bid capabilities for the future,” Shaun begins. “Our focus is not simply on submitting bids, but on improving overall quality, consistency, and effectiveness of bid activities so Clients can achieve long-term growth and success.” He continues, “Our unique selling point lies in the combination of strategic insight and hands-on delivery, underpinned by a genuine commitment to long-term improvement. We don’t just “write bids” – we enhance how bids are done. This means clients benefit not only from immediate writing or submission support, but from improved processes, stronger content, and increased capability over time.” Businesses benefiting from Ocean City Bids’ services range from SMEs to large national and international organisations. It works closely with them, taking time to understand their unique services, challenges, and ambitions, providing expert advice and guidance based on experience throughout, while also offering specialist bid recruitment, to help build and strengthen internal bid functions. Clients come to Ocean City Bids knowing they’ll receive tailored, flexible, expert services, whether in the form of ad-hoc support on specific bids, additional capacity during peak periods, or fully outsourced bid management. This comprehensive service offering covers the entire bid lifecycle and wider business development activities, including bid process review and development, bid strategy consulting, and implementation of effective governance to ensure strong and compliant submissions. It provides end-to-end bid writing and management, alongside strategic advice, opportunity identification, and high-quality content creation. Furthermore, the team also offers senior-level review and quality assurance to enhance submission quality, in addition to coaching, mentoring, and training to develop bid professional careers. This comes alongside supporting clients with grant and funding applications, including writing, management, and ongoing advisory support. “Our approach is deliberately different from a traditional, transactional bid consultancy or freelance bid writers. While we are proud of the results we help our clients achieve in terms of contract wins and quality scores, our primary focus is on building longterm capability, consistency, and confidence within bid activities.” Key toward this exceptional service offering is remaining ahead of the curve, with Shaun describing doing so as “a deliberate and continuous process rather than a reactive one”. He continues, “As an experienced team working across multiple sectors – particularly within complex and highly regulated environments like health and social care – we maintain a constant focus on evolving procurement trends, regulations, buyer expectations, and best practice in bid management. “We achieve this by combining active market engagement with practical, real-world learning. Our team is continuously involved in live tenders, framework applications, and funding submissions, alongside being regularly involved in consultations with industry bodies such as the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP), which gives us immediate insight into what evaluators are looking for and how requirements are shifting. We also place strong emphasis on post-submission review, lessons learned, and feedback analysis – using every opportunity, won or lost, to refine our approach and improve future performance.” The company is committed to efficiency and excellence, proactively developing and refining bid libraries, processes, and governance structures to reduce duplication, improve consistency, and enable faster, higherquality responses. By embedding structured methodologies alongside tailored, clientspecific content, speed never compromises quality. Ultimately, it is the team’s forward-thinking mindset and relentless focus on quality, efficiency, and continuous improvement that ensures Ocean City Bids remains on the leading edge and consistently delivering value for its clients – both now and into the future. Shaun concludes, “We are not a volume-driven consultancy – we are focused on doing the right work, in the right way, and delivering outputs at the right time that we and our clients can be confident in. This ethos underpins everything we do and is key to the long-term relationships we build. “If there is one message to leave with readers, it is that Ocean City Bids is not just there to “support or write bids”, but to elevate how organisations approach bidding altogether – delivering both immediate results and lasting value.” Company name: Ocean City Bids Ltd Contact name: Shaun Ford Website: www.oceancitybids.co.uk Email: bid@oceancitybids.co.uk
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