Freight Tender Management Case Study: Building a Regional Center of Excellence
Sherpa’s founder rebuilt the Americas tender management function for Damco, then part of the Maersk Group, transforming a fragmented regional bid process into a scalable center of excellence.
The business was struggling with slow RFP response times, inconsistent win rates, limited capacity, manual workflows, and a lack of standardized execution across the Americas and the world.
The result was a complete tender management transformation: a bilingual team in Latin America, new automation tools, standardized bid processes, faster response times, significantly higher capacity, and a global operating procedure that helped define how regional teams collaborated with local country organizations.
Project Scale at a Glance
300% productivity increase
Major improvement in tender processing efficiency
30 to 300+ RFPs annually
Annual tender capacity scaled by more than 10x
95% spot quote response rate
Dedicated team performance for a major global apparel customer
7 person bilingual team
New team recruited, trained, and developed in Latin America
~60-page operating guide
Training manual and global operating procedure built utilizing OneNote
Tens of millions in annual RFP value
Major air and ocean freight opportunities supported
The Challenge
Damco’s Americas tender management function was fragmented, reactive, and difficult to scale.
The organization was receiving more complex freight RFPs from major global customers, but the internal process had not kept pace. RFP intake, pricing coordination, bid compilation, local-country collaboration, response tracking, and customer deadlines relied heavily on manual effort and individual knowledge.
The team was supporting opportunities that could reach tens of millions of dollars in value, but the process was not built to consistently manage that level of complexity.
The threshold for the regional tender team’s support included major opportunities such as:
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RFPs involving more than 1,000 TEUs
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Air freight opportunities above 50 tons
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LCL opportunities above 5,000 CBMs
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Bids involving more than 10 countries of origin or destination
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Large-scale ocean and air freight opportunities with major commercial impact
The challenge was not simply to move work from one location to another. It was to rebuild the operating model while maintaining customer service, improving response quality, and increasing the organization’s ability to compete for high-value freight opportunities.
Sherpa Founder’s Role
Gareth Dobbs, founder of Sherpa Supply Chain, was brought in to redesign and offshore the Americas tender management function from the United States to Latin America.
His role included process redesign, automation, team buildout, training, commercial strategy, pricing discipline, SOP development, and execution leadership.
He recruited, hired, trained, and developed a bilingual tender team of 7 professionals and structured the function into specialized workstreams for major global RFPs, regional tenders, and fast-turnaround spot quote support.
This required a practical understanding of how freight bids are actually won: not only through rate levels, but through speed, consistency, pricing logic, internal coordination, bid quality, and the ability to turn complex customer requirements into executable logistics solutions.
Scope of Work
Tender Process Redesign
The tender workflow was rebuilt from the ground up.
This included redesigning how RFPs were received, reviewed, assigned, priced, compiled, checked, submitted, tracked, and handed back to commercial teams.
The new process replaced fragmented ways of working with a structured operating model that could support both large strategic tenders and smaller regional opportunities.
Automation & Bid Tools
New tools and templates were created to streamline RFP intake, pricing coordination, bid compilation, response tracking, and internal follow-up.
The objective was to reduce repetitive manual work, improve accuracy, shorten turnaround times, and allow the team to manage a much higher volume of bids without simply adding headcount.
This created the operating leverage needed to scale annual RFP support from roughly 30 tenders to more than 300.
Team Buildout & Offshoring
A new bilingual team was built in Latin America to support the Americas region.
The team was recruited, trained, and developed into a specialized tender management function capable of supporting large global RFPs, regional bids, and urgent spot quote activity.
The transition was completed while maintaining 100% service levels to existing customers and mentoring a successor for continuity.
Global RFP & Regional Tender Support
The team supported major air and ocean freight RFPs with significant commercial value.
For the largest opportunities, the team coordinated across regional leadership, country organizations, product teams, pricing stakeholders, and commercial owners to produce stronger and more consistent customer responses.
The work created a clearer connection between customer requirements, pricing strategy, product capabilities, and execution feasibility.
Spot Quote Response Team
A dedicated spot quote response team was also created to support a major global apparel customer with aggressive turnaround expectations.
That team consistently achieved a 95% response rate, helping the business respond faster to time-sensitive opportunities and compete more effectively for spot freight.
Training, SOPs & the “Tender Bible”
A comprehensive OneNote operating guide of roughly 60 pages was created to train new employees and standardize how the tender function worked.
This guide covered:
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Industry knowledge
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Tender intake and qualification
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Pricing coordination
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Carrier and NVOCC negotiation tactics
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Hybrid fixed and spot pricing frameworks
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Bid compilation standards
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Internal review procedures
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Regional and country collaboration rules
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Global operating procedures for tender execution
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The guide became more than a training document. It served as the operating backbone for how regional tender teams collaborated with the in-country network.
Commercial Strategy & Bid Quality
The redesigned tender function was not only faster. It was commercially sharper.
The new model improved how the organization approached bid strategy, including when to use fixed pricing, when to use spot-market logic, how to evaluate lane-level competitiveness, how to coordinate with country teams, and how to build responses that were both competitive and executable.
The result was a team that could support more bids, respond faster, and help the business compete more effectively for high-value air and ocean freight opportunities.
The Outcome
The transformation delivered measurable operating and commercial impact.
Productivity increased by 300%. Annual RFP capacity grew from roughly 30 tenders to more than 300. The team maintained 100% service levels throughout the transition. A dedicated spot quote team achieved a 95% response rate for a major global apparel customer.
The improved process supported multimillion-dollar revenue opportunities, including large air and ocean freight RFPs with potential values reaching into the tens of millions of dollars.
The function also became more scalable, repeatable, and easier to manage. Instead of relying on fragmented knowledge and manual effort, the organization had a trained team, documented procedures, better tools, and a clearer operating model for managing complex freight bids across the Americas.
Why This Matters for Sherpa Clients
This case study directly supports Sherpa’s work in freight procurement, tender strategy, bid evaluation, commercial growth, and team performance.
For shippers, it means Sherpa understands how sophisticated logistics providers build, price, review, and respond to freight RFPs from the inside. That knowledge helps procurement teams design better RFPs, ask sharper questions, evaluate bids more effectively, and avoid tender structures that create poor pricing or weak execution.
For logistics providers, freight forwarders, NVOCCs, and commercial teams, it means Sherpa understands how to build the tender management discipline needed to respond faster, price smarter, and win more profitable business.
Sherpa brings hands-on experience building the people, processes, tools, SOPs, and commercial frameworks behind high-performing freight bid organizations.
Need a stronger freight tender process?
Sherpa helps shippers and logistics providers improve how freight bids are designed, evaluated, priced, and executed.
Whether you are running a major RFP, improving your bid response process, or building a more scalable commercial support function, Sherpa can help turn tender complexity into a competitive advantage.
Schedule a consultation to discuss your freight tender or bid management challenge.
When This Experience Is Relevant
This experience is especially relevant for companies that need to:
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Improve freight RFP execution
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Redesign a tender management process
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Build or scale a bid management team
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Offshore or centralize commercial support functions
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Improve spot quote response performance
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Standardize pricing and bid workflows
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Increase win rates on strategic opportunities
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Reduce manual work and bid errors
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Create SOPs, tools, and training for commercial teams
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Connect freight procurement strategy with practical execution
Integration Achievements
300%
Productivity Increase
30 to 300+
Annual RFP processing capacity gains
95%
Spot quote response rate
7
Bilingual Team Members
~60 pages
Training & SOP Guide
Tens of Millions
Target Revenue of RFPs Supported Annually