‘Be careful what you wish for’ has a strange resonance in the context of contracting for projects or to enhance your supply chain. Change the word ‘wish’ to ‘contract’ and the whole thing starts to sound familiar. Many of the most spectacular commercial and government disasters of the past quarter-century have been caused by either bad supplier selection or a bad contract.
If you choose a supplier who is incapable of delivering the goods or services, you will not get what you need – however tightly your contract is written. Of course, in their proposal they would have promised the earth. They may even have believed what they told you. But do you really want to take the risk that you could be contracting for disaster?
But let’s not discredit the huge number of competent, capable and honourable contractors out there. The disasters caused by contracting for the wrong thing are a lot harder to spot – but nevertheless equally damaging. If you choose the very best contractor, but give them the wrong brief, you could still end up with the wrong thing – delivered perfectly. We have a wonderful example, where we had to watch on helplessly as a large international company was systematically damaged by a contractor who was doing exactly what they had been contracted to do.
Getting a good contractor, to deliver exactly what you need, can make a huge difference to your business. We can help you understand and articulate your requirements, communicate them to industry, and select the supplier who is most likely to meet all your needs.
> I want to be careful what I contract for….
> I want to ensure that I select a contractor who can actually deliver what we need.