Staff Profile: Adele Morrison, Tender Manager

Adele Morrison joined our commercial team in February this year, assuming the position of Tender Manager. Based in Aberdeen, Adele is a seasoned expert in her field with vast knowledge and experience in delivering tenders and proposals for subsea projects, ranging from ROV pipeline and platform inspections, to diver-led subsea intervention and construction campaigns.

We sat down with Adele to give you an insight into her current role, day-to-day life at Rovco, and to find out a little bit more about her background.

Can you describe your role at Rovco?

I am the Tender Manager for Rovco, and I joined the team in late February this year. My main responsibility is to review ITT documents and engage with key stakeholders within the company for technical support. I also organise the preparation and delivery of tender submissions within the client’s requirements and timeframes, as well as evaluating the costings of all the tenders; I make sure that all costs are attributed to the project, along with understanding the schedule for performing the work. Additionally, there is always the potential for negotiations and clarifications on the back of every submission, which I would also typically manage.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you arrived at Rovco?

My career began in 2002 at Fugro, where I started out as a Commercial Assistant; I spent 11 years there, eventually progressing to the role of Proposals Manager. Building on that experience, I moved to Bibby in 2013, where I worked as the Tender Manager for a few years, until I was affected by the industry downturn like many others at the time.

Following some time at N-Sea, my most recent position before Rovco was with Cortez, where I worked in a sector that was completely new to me – pipe lay – which involves the mechanical connection of pipes for gas and crude oil. Because there aren’t many pipes going down in the North Sea, Cortez worked predominantly across Asia and Egypt.

My main motivation for joining Rovco earlier this year was to get back into the IRM side of things, and ROVs, which forms a big part of my knowledge base and background. It was also a fantastic opportunity, as Rovco is a burgeoning company primarily working in the renewables sector – as an emerging market, a lot of oil and gas professionals are moving into this field.

You’ve only been at the company since February – what have you noticed is changing?

I have noticed that we are definitely adapting our approach to the market; we’re looking at new areas within offshore wind and want to widen our market presence there. To achieve that, we need to go out and sell ourselves to operators and other tier one organisations – which means that we are tendering for a broader range of services.

Because we’re diversifying into new markets and other sectors within wind, the growth is there – our revenues are increasing year-on-year, and we are bolstering our onshore support network alongside that. We have a really good team just now, and everyone very much pulls together – it’s a case of everyone working towards one common goal.

What has been your proudest moment since joining Rovco?

My proudest moment has been aligning the cost sheets, as well as streamlining our systems and processes to create a much smoother workflow which now aligns a lot better with what we are doing as a business. The cost sheets are obviously a reflection of that too, whereby we can run multiple vessel or multiple phase projects within our costings, allowing better visibility of project budgets.

And your biggest challenge?

Everyone is very busy with their own day-to-day operational work, so it can sometimes be challenging to get people to focus on what I consider to be critical from a tendering perspective. However, now that the departmental teams are expanding, that will become less of a challenge and more the norm.

What would your advice be to anyone new joining the team?

I would advise them to shout! If things aren’t going as planned – for example, if the workload is too much, just speak up because there will always be someone to talk to, even if it isn’t necessarily your line manager. We have a wonderful working environment here at Rovco, in that you can just pick up the phone to anyone and iron out any problems with others who aren’t necessarily in your team.

Is there anything that you would want prospective clients to know about us?

As the business expands, the investment we are making into both personnel resources and equipment is going to be key to clients going forward. We try to look at where we can find synergies with other opportunities. All things considered, it’s of benefit to our clients to work with us.

How do you find the company culture?

One of the best aspects of Rovco‘s culture is how open the company is with communication; the senior management team go out of their way to ensure that we all understand what the board and the management are attempting to do in terms of driving the business forward in the short and long term. That’s fantastic, since it’s easy to feel like you’re losing out on the big picture if you’re working from home or from a remote office. It’s empowering for your employees to know that the company is clearly vested in new opportunities and technologies, and that they are sharing this with you.

At the end of the day, it’s pointless to have people sitting at home, unaware of what’s going on at work — Brian (Allen – CEO) and Simon (Miller – MD) are excellent at keeping those lines of communication open. They always say that their doors are open if there are any questions. It goes back to the idea that if you have a concern, query, or question, you can ask anyone.

Follow Adele on LinkedIn here