Commercial AdvisoryVariation management & commercial advisory.
This is where you put the little expanded sting, it should sit about a sentence and a half, maybe two?
Most projects don't fail at tender. They fail in the months between practical completion and final account — when variations have piled up, programme has slipped, and nobody on either side has the time to reconstruct what actually happened on site.
That reconstruction is the work. Pulling the right diary entries, the right RFIs, the right superintendent's instructions, the right photos, into a position that survives scrutiny. Knowing which arguments will hold and which won't. Knowing when to push and when to settle.
We do this work for main contractors, sub-trades, developers, and public sector clients. Sometimes from day one of a project. More often, when something has gone sideways and a clear-eyed second opinion is needed before things escalate further.
01
Variation Management.
Variation Management
Variations are where projects make or lose their margin. We assemble, price and defend variation claims to the standard required by the contract, properly substantiated, properly priced, and submitted on time. On the receiving side, we assess incoming variations the same way: tested against the contract, tested against what was actually built.
Where a variation register has gone stale, we re-build it from source records and re-state the position. Most of our mid-project work starts here.
02
Mid-project commercial recovery.
Mid-project Commercial Recovery
We are regularly brought into projects mid-delivery, where costs have started to climb and the commercial picture is no longer clear. The work in those engagements is roughly the same shape every time:
Reconstruct the commercial position from drawings, instructions, diaries and photos
Identify variation claims that should have been raised but weren't
Re-test programme entitlement against actual events on site
Quantify cost-to-complete on a defensible basis
Stand up a clean reporting cadence between site team, head office and client
Hand back a project that knows where it stands — and where it's going
The earlier we're brought in, the more is recoverable. But it's rarely too late.
03
Risk analysis
Risk Analysis
Independent commercial risk reviews on tender packages, contracts in negotiation, and live projects. We tell you where the exposures actually sit, design completeness, programme float, payment mechanism, indemnities, force majeure carve-outs, not the boilerplate version. Useful before signing. More useful before bidding.
04
Value Engineering
Value Engineering.
VE done by people who've actually built things. We work with the design team and the contractor to find the cost out of a package without taking the performance out with it. Specification swaps, sequencing changes, prefabrication trade-offs, package re-splits. Honest about what saves money and what just shifts it.
05
Commercial Negotiations
Commercial negotiations.
We sit at the table, for clients, for contractors, for sub-trades, when the numbers need to land. Final accounts, contested variations, programme entitlement, settlement of disputed claims. Direct, evidence-led, and unwilling to argue from positions that won't hold.
06
Contract strategy.
Contract Strategy
Procurement form, package structure, risk allocation, payment mechanism. We work alongside legal counsel, not in place of them — we bring the construction reality to the contract, and we bring it before the contract is signed, while there's still room to move.