We are the world’s largest university press. That means we serve the academic community as no other publisher can. We work in partnership with institutions and learned societies to bring a world of knowledge to the fingertips of students and researchers worldwide.
The goal is impact. Together with our academic communities, we curate and seamlessly connect together the ideas that push their fields forward, so they can learn from them, add to them, and continue a virtuous cycle of scholarship.
And because we are a part of the academic community and guided in everything we do by our mission, we re-invest in our people, our publishing, and the world-leading research institution of which we are part.
About the Role
We’re excited to be expanding the reach of our leading Law portfolio into the Professional law sector. To achieve this, we have established a specialised sales team with deep sector and product knowledge and we’re looking for an energetic and passionate candidate to motivate and lead this new sales team. You will also play a pivotal role in helping to build lasting customer relationships, and collaborate closely with key internal stakeholders across marketing, product, and editorial colleagues to continue to refine and develop the product proposition.
You will develop and implement a global business strategy for the professional law sector to assist OUP to achieve its annual sales targets for the relevant products. This should be achieved by effectively managing the sales team, working collaboratively with stakeholders, and maintaining and building on our business with existing customers as well as seeking out new opportunities.
Duties will include:
Managing Team - Recruit, train, motivate and manage a team of field-based staff so that individual and team performance meets and exceeds expectations.
Sales Strategy - To develop and implement a business strategy for the relevant sector and territories and to update this on a regular basis to assist OUP to meet its required annual sales targets.
Budget Management - Achieve goals through team and personal effort. In conjunction with Sales Director, prepare and monitor an annual budget for revenue. Monitor costs and ensure business is delivered within overheads budget.
Customer Success – Build a culture of end user customer satisfaction and engagement through successful onboarding and ongoing support to ensure retention.
Problem Solving - Use initiative to resolve issues requiring sophisticated analytical or problem-solving techniques to identify cause and use judgment, and interpretation to help others select right course of action, which may impact the longer term.
Data fluency – Ability to analyse and interpret data to identify trends and opportunities and translate it into actionable insights to grow sales, improve sales team efficiency, and improve customer experience.
Market development - Co-ordinate research into new prospects and new business opportunities for relevant products in order to identify areas for growth and future product development.
Sector & Product knowledge - Maintain a demonstrably thorough knowledge of the electronic information publishing industry and the practitioner law sector, its products, markets and trends and OUP’s position in it, to help maintain our competitive advantage. Likewise, maintain a comprehensive knowledge of OUP’s electronic product offering as it develops
Working collaboratively with stakeholders - Establish and maintain regular communication with other OUP departments in order to take maximum advantage of all relevant opportunities. Report feedback from the markets back to the team and other stakeholders within the business, in order to help ensure that OUP’s sales and product development strategies are market-orientated, where possible
Personal Management- Working in a way that upholds OUPs Ethics and Compliance practice and Code of Conduct, and actively demonstrates OUP values and qualities, acting up on behalf of Director for Institutional Sales when needed.
This role can be remote-based or based in the Oxford office where we operate a hybrid working policy that requires a minimum of 2 days per week in the office.
About You
Essential:
Previous experience of successfully managing a team
Previous sales or customer facing experience
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
Demonstrable experience taking the initiative and problem solving
Highly skilled in using software packages such as Excel and CRM systems, with a proven aptitude to learn and work with new systems
Excellent organisational and prioritisation abilities
Proven stakeholder management, collaboration and influencing skills
Desirable:
Experience of interpreting legal documents and negotiating intelligently with legally qualified people
Knowledge or experience of the legal sector
Benefits
We care about work/life balance here at OUP. With this in mind we offer 25 days’ holiday that rises with service, plus bank holidays and Christmas closure (3-days) and a 35-hour working week. We are open to discussing flexibility in respect to working patterns, dependent on role. We also have a great variety of active employee networks and societies.
We help make your money go further by contributing to your pension up to 12%, offering loans and savings schemes through our partnership with Salary Finance, in addition to travel to work schemes and access to a wide range of local discounts.
This role comes with the added benefit of a car and a discretionary annual sales bonus.
Please see our Rewards and Recognition page for more information.
We are committed to supporting diversity in our workforce, and ensuring an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. We seek to employ a workforce representative of the markets that we serve and encourage applications from all.
