No value in partnering?

Their new major projects chief has moved the airport operator away from building relationship and trust through frameworks, returning to the gladiatorial approach to tendering that we knew before. The rationale is simple and unchanged, to achieve best value for the client. The change is that the relationships established over the 15 years since John Egan took over are now deemed valueless.

Is this because there is no value in relationships or because those particular relationships are not felt to be delivering? I know that my relationship with my contract web developers is about more than cost and that my graphic designer’s understanding of my business and my goals saves me significant time – and therefore money, every time they do a job for me.

What is true – and thrown into stark relief by redundancies and insolvencies – is that relationships that allow contractors to make more money on jobs must deliver equivalent savings or value for the client. Those that don’t will not survive this crunch.

It’s a bit like a marriage. Once you’re in, you still have to try or, hard as it is, you’ll be out on your ear.

So if you’re on a framework or in a partnering relationship, don’t forget to work hard to deliver (to use a hackneyed phrase) “exceptional customer value”. Doing that is what allows you the higher margin.

Back to BAA. Are they doing the right thing? It does only take a second to score a goal – but the same is true of an own goal. Which one is this I wonder?

Ross Sturley is Principal of Chart Lane, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy and a firm believer in the power of relationships. Honest. He is also a Construction Newsblogger, and committee member for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group (CIMCIG), whose conference on December 2 this year – Strategy 2010 – will help construction marketers prepare for the challenges of the coming year.

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