An Inclusivity Unlocked! webinar
about inclusive business development
Wednesday 8 February 2023
12.30 – 1.30 pm
We can all be rainmakers. It isn’t limited to “extroverts” who love “working a room” at a busy conference. It doesn’t have to be measured in terms of numbers of business cards gathered or LinkedIn connections made. There’s space for a whole range of approaches, to suit your personal working style, meaning that far more team members can contribute to developing the business than we might previously have assumed.
In this webinar, another in our Inclusivity Unlocked! series, we took a fresh look at business development (BD) for 2023 and beyond. Drawing on their own experiences, including through the pandemic, our panellists explored:
- How accepting a range of different approaches, and evaluating outcomes in a suitably broad-minded way, can allow virtually anyone to contribute to business development.
- How that in turn can help us engage more inclusively with our clients.
- How the Covid-19 lockdowns have made that even easier, by introducing us to new ways of interacting with one another.
Meet the panel
The people kindly sharing their insights and experiences with us were:
- Bernard Savage, a specialist business development guru from Size 10½ Boots, who has worked with the IP and wider legal sectors for some time now and has long been encouraging them to think more broadly about building profitable – and sustainable – business relationships
- Susi Fish, a patent attorney and partner at Boult Wade Tennant, who shared her journey into the world of BD – a world she had previously shied away from – through lockdown and beyond
- And in the chair, Alan McFarlane, CEO at Keltie, whose current role, alongside his background in management accounting and operations directing, placed him well to explore how BD plays out in the IP sector
All three are passionate about increasing the diversity of contributions to BD, benefitting from a wider range of thinking and working styles, and ensuring that everyone can feel included in a business’s growth strategies.
Who was it for?
This event was open to all UK-based IP professionals. It didn’t matter what type of organisation you worked in, what role you played in it or what career level you were at. It didn’t even matter if you’d never previously been involved in business development. Everyone was welcome!
Follow-up resources
You can access a recording of the webinar here, and a report of the discussion highlights here.
Click on the images below to download the “top tips” distilled from this event.
A list of all Inclusivity Unlocked! events and resources is available here, and a compilation of the “top tips” here. If you’d like to have your say on themes or formats for future events in the series, please let us know by emailing [email protected].
Cost
This event was free. So are all our resources. We think it’s important to keep IP Inclusive on the right side of the paywall.
That said, we do need money to keep the show on the road, so if you enjoyed the event, please consider contributing to our 2022-23 fundraising campaign. For more information – including about corporate donations – visit our fundraising page.
More about Inclusivity Unlocked!
Inclusivity Unlocked! is a banner under which we’re hosting a programme of events and resources on workplace inclusivity post-Covid. Our aim is to provide practical guidance around how workplaces and working arrangements can be made more inclusive for everyone as we build back after the pandemic. You can find out more about the project here. There’s also an up-to-date list of scheduled and past events, with links to associated follow-up resources, here.