After a weekend in the countryside watching nature force up new green shoots in response to the raising temperature and the change in the season, I was reminded that things are always changing and not to change is to stand still - to stand still means being overtaken. So in the light of recent economical and financial uncertainty, who do you trust to help you move forwards? Who are your friends in the construction sector that offer you the most risk adverse supply chain and who are actually capable of being able to flex and bend to the current flux of workflow?
In selecting your supply chain, best value must be the safest and best option – you should never be demonized for doing so. Best value includes depth of experience, likelihood of long-term existence, resilience and reliability. While these traits may mean best value is not the cheapest, it will give your Finance Director and Commercial Director the confidence that there will be no long list of VOs in week one on site - or any additional post appointment items sneaking in – which means no battles during the construction phase with arguably the largest subcontract package on site.
Appointing the right sub-contractor means selection based on reliability, dependability and longevity. Perhaps some contractors demonstrating these commonly shared ideas of responsibility and committed long-termism are the more reliable ones for your higher profile or strategically more crucial projects. While the underlying reason d’etre is to make money, the subcontract team do actually need to make some too! ‘Buying’ projects at near 0% net profit or less will make the project a struggle from start to finish.
It will see a huge risk in not being finished on time due to insufficient committed resources and the quality will be hugely impacted putting the future of your new build at risk. The costs of these failures to deliver are catastrophic and can be avoided by looking towards Best Value which does not always mean selecting your team based on the lowest cost.
Family, future, heritage and legacy are increasingly important factors in determining how you approach the development of a strong portfolio and business. Businesses who have seen fluctuating environments over the long term are the best placed to offer this strong consistent delivery and advice today. Selecting a contractor and other suppliers who have demonstrated this over generations has to be one key way to mitigate delivery risk. Are these issues part of your procurement team’s agenda? Should they be?
