The international RFP challenge
The scenario: a major public tender opens in France for a large mixed-use development. The brief asks for an international architecture firm with experience in sustainable urban design. You have exactly that experience, but in London, Dubai and New York, not in France. Your French competitors know the client, the jury and the local planning context. You're starting from zero.
This is a situation we meet regularly. The practices we've worked with and for, such as UNStudio, Ector Hoogstad Architecten and ODA New York, have world-class capabilities and international portfolios. What a firm new to a market often lacks is a structured approach to winning competitive tenders where it is unknown.
Phase 1: pre-positioning, before the RFP is published
The best RFP strategies start before the RFP exists. In most European markets, major tenders are preceded by six to eighteen months in which the client develops the brief, consults stakeholders and identifies potential respondents.
- Intelligence gathering: monitor public procurement platforms (TED in the EU, national portals in each country), track development announcements, zoning changes and infrastructure plans, and identify opportunities twelve months or more before publication.
- Relationship building: attend the events where clients and jury members are, publish thought leadership relevant to the project type, engage with local professional associations.
- Local teaming: build relationships with potential local partners before you need them. A partnership assembled under deadline pressure rarely performs well.
Phase 2: opportunity assessment
Not every RFP is worth pursuing. A serious international tender response costs tens of thousands of euros in direct preparation. Before committing, assess:
- Win probability: do you have a genuine advantage, or are you making up the numbers? If the brief is clearly written for an incumbent, you're probably wasting resources.
- Strategic value: even with a moderate chance, does the project establish you in a priority market? Would losing still bring relationships and market knowledge?
- Resource availability: can you dedicate a senior team without compromising live projects?
- Local partnership readiness: do you have a credible local team, or would you be scrambling? Juries can tell the difference.
Phase 3: team assembly
In most European tenders the composition of your team matters as much as your portfolio. Juries judge who will actually do the work.
- Local architect or engineer of record: in markets like France and Belgium a locally licensed professional must sign off. It's also a signal of commitment.
- Local project manager: someone who knows local construction practice, subcontractors and planning authorities.
- Cultural interpreter: in non-English markets, someone who translates context as well as language, and understands what the jury is really asking beneath the formal brief.
Phase 4: the response
Structure
Winning international responses share some elements:
- Lead with local relevance: open with your understanding of the city, its regulations and its challenges, not your global portfolio.
- Show knowledge transfer: explain what you learned from each international project that applies to this brief.
- Present a credible delivery model: who does what, where they're based, how you manage quality across countries. Juries fear that the A-team will pitch and the B-team will deliver.
- Price competitively, not cheaply: undercutting signals desperation and a lack of local knowledge.
Presentation
- Present in the local language if you can, even if the brief was in English. A presentation in fluent French to a French jury creates an immediate connection.
- Lead with the senior team who will actually run the project. Juries are judging chemistry as well as competence.
- Address the "foreign firm" concern directly, and explain how your local team and partners reduce the risk.
Phase 5: after submission
- Debrief: in most European procurement systems you're entitled to feedback. Always ask for it.
- Keep the relationships: jury members and client contacts are now part of your network. The project you lose today can lead to the one you win next year.
- Document and systematise: keep an internal record of questions, criteria, competitor approaches and local norms, so each bid is faster than the last.
How we support tenders
Our tender and bid support covers the whole cycle: opportunity intelligence, bid/no-bid, team assembly, local partners, the written response and presentation coaching, in English, French or Italian. Talk to us about your next tender.