Philip Collard spoke on Bidding to Win at this half-day seminar for architects, practice managers and business development managers focused on doing better business in difficult times. The seminar was run by World Architecture News on November 3, 2009 at One Alfred Place, London W1.

Philip explored how to get Bidding to Win right - bidding for jobs is time-consuming and expensive. He challenged delegates that losing is bad news. If they could raise their win-rate by 10% - well, they`d be happy. What is the current best practice? How can you know which jobs to bid for and which to leave alone?

There were a wide range of subjects covered in this seminar, aimed to help architects understand new tools on the market, benchmark activity against best practice and improve business generation and profit margins. Things are hard in UK architecture right now; there has been an 800% increase in the number of registered architects signing on. Jobs are stalled, and pressure on fees is intense. Delegated attended to discover what they could do to generate new business, and then maximise margins.