Business Development Director, Pipers Model Makers

Pipeline & Reporting

Maintain a clear record of business development activity, relationships and emerging opportunities. Work with the Commercial Director to ensure opportunities move into the commercial pipeline at the appropriate stage. Provide the Managing Director with regular visibility of:

• Priority target clients
• Relationships being developed
• Meetings and introductions
• Future project intelligence
• Emerging opportunities
• Progress against agreed priorities

Getting Started / Routes to Market

New London Model

We add schemes that have received planning permission to the model free of charge.

This provides a great reason to get in touch with multiple potential clients involved in each scheme, including developers and architects.

This contact could take various forms:

• We’re getting in touch to make sure all your schemes are up to date on the model.
• We’ve identified a scheme of yours that has received planning and would like to add it for you.
• We’ve added one or more of your schemes – here are some images.
• Here’s a video of your scheme being printed.
• We’ve printed you your own version.
• Would you like to come to The London Centre to see your projects on the model?

All the above can be accompanied by messaging around:

• We obviously do this because we want the opportunity to produce models for this and your other projects.
• Can we come in and speak to the team and make sure we’re a registered supplier / on your preferred supplier list?
• Can you tell us more about how you use models, who commissions them and what opportunities might be coming up?

City of London Model

This is not free of charge but is also a good route into clients who are likely to have wider model-making requirements. It's also an area that can be sold relatively directly, without the usual consultative approach, so could be sold by the Business Development Director directly. A typical additional cost £4,000-£10,000.

Routes to selling additions to the City Model will typically be:

• The City of London makes an introduction to the client, encouraging them to add their scheme.
• We identify a scheme with planning permission and start with a free-of-charge addition to the New London Model, before speaking to the client about adding it to the City Model.
• We are approached about a model commission directly and then make the client aware that their scheme f=could also be added to the City Model.

Aside from the opportunity to sell updates to the City Model, this provides another route into potential clients, including:

• Following up with the project team – developer, architect and others – once a scheme is added, to ask about other model-making requirements they may have on this and other projects.
• We are installing a new interactive system, so will need to contact clients to collect information and images for their Project Profile.
• There is an opportunity to evolve the Interactive System to include Client Profile pages, providing another reason for clients to add schemes and stay in contact with us about information being displayed.
• Sharing images of projects once they have been added to the model.
• Meeting clients around the model so they can see their projects in context.
• Offering a replica of the model made for the City Model, which could be displayed in their office or made portable for use in meetings.

Lapsed Pipers Clients

Pipers has worked with a large number of clients over many years. It is quite normal for clients not to commission models for long periods simply because they don't have a requirement. Many of our clients work like this and come back to us when they next need something. In other instances, personnel within an organisation may have changed during that time and, when a new requirement arises, the work goes elsewhere. There is a good opportunity to systematically reach out to these clients and re-establish relationships.

Pipers Products

We are developing the London Projection Model and Interactive City Model, which give us a reason to talk to people about products rather than just our usual model-making services. With each of these, and potentially other products in the future, we can identify companies that may have a used for them even if they weren't previously aware that the opportunity existed. Even if they don't ultimately buy the product, it provides another reason to be in contact and opens up a wider conversation about Pipers and their future requirements.

Our Market

Pipers has an excellent reputation in the marketplace. There will be companies we have never worked with, but as a market leader we should feel confident approaching them to make sure they know who we are, understand what we do and have our details when a requirement arises. Many of these companies will also be NLA members, so there will be potentially be opportunities for introductions or other routes to make contact.

Key Interfaces

Managing Director

Sets overall business and market priorities with the BDD; provides senior support, introductions and market insight; reviews progress and decides where business development effort should be concentrated.

Commercial Director

Provides deep knowledge of existing clients and historic relationships; takes ownership of formal enquiries, proposals, commercial negotiations and project account management once opportunities become live.

Production Director

Provides technical input and capability knowledge where required and helps identify new capabilities or products that can create commercial opportunities.

NLA / The London Centre

Provides a valuable source of market intelligence, relationships, introductions and opportunities to engage with potential Pipers clients.

Role Boundaries

The Business Development Director is primarily responsible for creating and developing future opportunities. The Commercial Director remains responsible for managing live commercial opportunities and the client relationship through the project lifecycle. The Managing Director remains accountable for overall business performance, market priorities and major strategic relationships. There will inevitably be collaboration between these roles, but opportunities should have clear ownership as they move from relationship development into active enquiry and delivery.

Measures of Success

Success should be assessed over an appropriate period for a relationship-led business and should include:

• Number and quality of priority client relationships established
• Increased engagement with target organisations
• Increased number of clients with Pipers registered or recognised as a supplier
• Future projects identified before formal model requirements arise
• New opportunities generated from target clients
• Re-engagement of valuable historic clients
• Opportunities generated through the New London Model and City of London Model
• Development of product-led opportunities
• Consistency and quality of marketing activity
• Quality and diversity of the forward pipeline
• Ultimately, profitable work secured from new and reactivated relationships

Future Development – Internal

Pipers would ideally appoint someone capable of developing beyond the immediate requirements of the role. As their knowledge of the business, market, clients