Member Article

A trusting National Trust

It’s been a busy week of events for R&B Group all over the country including work in Portsmouth, Nottingham and Birmingham, not to mention several projects closer to home.

It’s good to see clients investing in their events, and the National Trust is a great example of this.

As an extremely large national charity organisation the Trust is required to hold an Annual General Meeting each year, and invite its members to participate in a day of debate about current issues. By engaging a professional, independent Production Manager who understands the full technical aspects of the event and has no “vested interest” in which suppliers are appointed, they have been treated to some great events over the years.

R&B Group was successful in winning the tender to supply cameras and projection system again this year. It’s the fairest tender process I know; sensible specification in the right language (not written by an event manager who doesn’t really get the technical stuff!) and a transparent decision process not based solely on price. We haven’t won it every year that we have bid for it, although this was our 4thyear in the last six.

It’s always interesting to understand a client’s mindset when analysing a tender response. In this case, the fact that we employ our own staff and own a lot of our own equipment is what tipped the balance for us. Rates on equipment have been squeezed and there is often not much to choose between suppliers. However, for events like this, if you have the direct labour rather than using freelance crew it’s possible to be more flexible in the approach to this element – and that’s what won it for R&B Group – together, of course, with the fact that we have demonstrated we can deliver. Which is all about trust, which you can’t put a price on!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by R&B Group .