Manager - Pursuit Management/Proposal Management - Professional Services

Position purpose :

- The primary role would be to enhance firm positioning and win conversion on large strategic bids for the India firm.

- The role requires working with the firm leadership and opportunity teams (Partners, Directors, senior staff and engagement teams) across the proposal development process.

- The candidate should be aware of global pursuit best practices and tools and should be able to advocate and utilise them as part of the role.

Overall scope and impact of the role:

- The role can have a significant impact on the direction a proposal takes, the key messages being delivered, the overall performance of the team and ultimately on the success of the proposal.

- No two proposals are the same - there are different people and issues involved every time. Proposals are always high pressure; high profile situations with tight deadlines. As a consequence, there is a high degree of original thinking, analysis and interpretation required constantly with an ongoing need for creative and innovative ideas.

Key role activities/ responsibilities

- Experience in driving and writing proposals in a professional services/ consulting business environment.

- Ability to drive and formulate customized proposals, presentations - developing and refining value proposition and key messages.

- Pursuit strategy development and independent assessment of an opportunity - experience of attending pre-bid sessions with functional and client service teams, discerning key parameters and sharing analysis to highlight strengths, weakness and dependencies.

- Demonstrated experience in bid planning and management:

- Programme managing and aligning pursuit activities to help ensure timely and quality delivery.

- Conduct compliance check against the client's formal request and perform quality checks on responses developed.

- Track progress and ensure that contributors to the proposal development process have a clear understanding of their individual roles and of the materials required within given timeframes.

- Review completed proposal sections to ensure requirements are adequately addressed.

- Organize and lead project team communications, including team meetings and calls, touch points and action item follow-up.

- Developing Client Interaction Plans - Coaching Client Service Teams and Leaders to understand key client influences and helping articulate related interactions.

- Demonstrated experience in preparing teams for client meetings, leading the development of presentation materials and synthesizing important issues.

- Value proposition development (written and verbal articulation) - Drafting key elements of a proposal, articulating problem statement, connecting the right solutions, quality and compliance review, writing the executive summary.

- Preparing teams for orals/ live client pitches - Presentation storyboarding, key messaging development and representation, facilitating independent challenge by SME Partners/ Advisors through targeted mock sessions and developing props and collaterals to enhance pitch delivery.

- Collaborate and engage with the brand and design team and be aware and supportive of the design and production process.

- Experience of working with internal stakeholders to streamline pursuit mandates - On-boarding of technical SMEs and alliance partners (value proposition and teaming connect), seamless alignment with corporate services (business finance, risk and contractual teams).

- Knowledge management and dissemination - managing pursuit research and knowledge management and help ensure knowledge is distilled and leveraged for other opportunities.

- Establish network with global pursuit teams .

- Maintain active connects with global sectoral and functional SPOCs

- Align and adapt global best practices and knowledge repositories

- Minimise green field data sourcing.

Experience/ Qualifications/ Skill sets required :

- Graduate/ Post-Graduate in business or marketing streams.

- 8+ years of experience in a similar role for a large multinational company - experience in a professional services firm (including and especially a Big4) would be desirable.

- Demonstrated experience in one or more of the following is required: Responding to large Government/ PSU/Global Aid Tenders and/or large proposals in sectors such as FS, TMT (Tech, Media, Telecom), FMCG, Manufacturing, Energy, Transportation & Logistics.

- Good analytical, writing and articulation skills - ability to surmise varied discussion points into sharp and nuanced messaging, integrating most PoVs.

- Proficient in MS Office (Word, PPT and Excel)

- Good project management experience - record bid responsibilities and track progress to ensure that contributors to the proposal development process have a clear understanding of their individual roles and of the materials required within given timeframes.

- Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.

- Self-motivated with the ability to take directions and work independently.

- Experience in directly working with and delivering to leadership and senior stakeholders expectations in a pursuit scenario.