Cut it to win it

Bid review for The Glasshouse. The price is too high, and the cost plan has a line nobody's sure about.

Cut to win

Bid review

The price is three per cent too high.

The cost plan

Helen: Information manager? Out. Document controller? Out. The engineers can do it as they go.

Contract award

They win. Biscuits all round.

Month three

Nobody looks after the shared place for files. Drawings arrive by email, memory stick and "I think Alex sent it".

Month nine

Two versions of every drawing, a fortnight of rework, and no handover information, so the client holds back a payment. The rework bill is ten times the cut.

Phone: COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR

Commercial Director: Where's the margin gone?

They cut the people who look after the information. Then paid for it ten times over.

Find out what Helen should have done

Helen's Lesson 2 · Cut it to win it, then the same story done the right way.