Before you meet us, get to know us

RPC is a modern, progressive and commercially-oriented City legal services business. From our offices in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore we provide advice to both UK and international clients.

What we do

Our legal practice spans a wide range of industry sectors and is broadly split into two discrete areas: insurance and corporates. Working on both contentious and non-contentious matters, our clients range from large multinationals to growth UK corporate firms and other professional practices, and include many household names.

Why we're different

We have a confident, accessible and enterprising approach that sets performance, service and value at the top of the agenda. Our goal is to do the usual things unusually well, make the complex simple and help our internal and external clients build better, stronger businesses.

Business Services at RPC

Working at RPC means being part of a collaborative and creative environment, which is flexible, transparent and friendly. We value our business services teams and recognise that individual contributions at all levels are essential to the success of RPC as a whole.

RPC's business services teams include:

• Brand Marketing & Sales
• Client Services
• Executive Office
• Facilities
• Finance
• Legal Project Management
• Information Technology
• People & Talent Development
• Risk & Compliance
• Secretarial Support

Role Overview

The role of the Proposals Manager is at the forefront of our marketing and sales efforts and proposal support is a core service delivered by the Brand, Marketing & Sales function to the business.

Reporting to the Head of Business Development, the Proposals Manager position is responsible for the management and delivery of larger, panel style (often procurement led), cross-group pitches, along with the creation of a best practice framework for the overall approach to pitching at RPC.

Typical proposals include re-pitching for existing client work, pitching for additional work from existing clients and pitching for new work from new prospects. The focus of this role will be competitive qualified opportunities (RFIs, RFPs, panel appointments). The development of a best practice framework will include reviewing existing processes and procedures and then improving or putting in place new tools, infrastructure (e.g. software support, content storage, guides and training) and processes that enable the firm to 'raise the bar' in how it goes about pitching.

The role would be suitable for a Proposals Manager who is not only experienced in the pitch process but who also enjoys developing relationships with key internal stakeholders and is looking for the challenge of building a new capability in a mid-sized law firm where they can make a strategic impact.

Reports to

Head of Business Development

Key responsibilities

Managing the entire proposal process (including advisory and fulfilment)

• Qualifying new proposal opportunities (bid/no bid)
• Company, stakeholder and competitor intelligence gathering
• Helping partners define and execute the proposal strategy
• Production of the proposal documentation
• Coaching orals/ preparing presentations
• Post decision reviews - enabling us to learn from both our successes and failures and to modify our processes where necessary

Managing the firm's approach to proposals in general

• Reaffirming and reinforcing the importance of the proposal process as a critical element of RPC's growth strategy
• Pipeline management - being the central point of contact and 'champion' for all competitive pitches and reinforcing the process of recording all incoming opportunities (whether undertaken or not) in the firm's sales management database
• Establishing best practice (the process) and the right mindset (enthusiastic response and creating time to work on each proposal)
• Managing resources - working alongside the BD Manager and/or the Associate allocated to the proposal; and co-ordinating the delivery of the documentation with the Document Production & Design team

Developing the firm's capability in this area

• Promoting and developing the firm's proposal methodology
• Developing and maintaining pitch management tools on the firm's intranet
• Improving standard content and presentation materials to support the proposal process
• Maintaining a proposal library
• Working with the Head of Business Development and the Learning & Development team to lead the development and delivery of bid training for fee earners
• Providing regular reporting on pipeline, win/loss and feedback from post decision reviews
• Working alongside the firm's pricing experts to develop the firm's pricing capabilities

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Experience developing and implementing best practice proposal infrastructure, processes and tools
• Experience project managing and advising on major panel tenders
• Evidence of good Partner management skills, ideally gained within a professional services environment
• Must be educated to graduate level and a relevant post-graduate management or marketing qualification such as an MBA, CIM or equivalent would be advantageous
• Stature and gravitas - is professional, credible and impactful and confident with persuading and influencing where appropriate
• Relationship development - ability to build trusted relationships with key internal stakeholders (Partners and BD Managers)
• Highly commercial with a real interest in business
• Energised and organised - very busy, multitasking, able to work to deadlines
• Strong copywriting skills
• Excellent IT skills - all Microsoft packages