Small is beautiful but frequently forgotten

Here's a dilemma for the forward-thinker. How can you make the cost savings your paymasters are demanding, while subscribing to the construction best practice policies the industry is advocating, without contributing to the decline of the smaller contractor?

Partnering and framework contracts are all the rage, and why not? They seem to be delivering some useful time and cost savings. And at the same time they are enabling clients and contractors to talk to each other like never before. It's the perfect example of win-win.

But some people still aren't happy. Smaller contractors, it seems, are missing out on these cosy deals and reporting their worst workload results since early 1997 (see p2). The most obvious effects of alliance agreements, they say, is the disappearance of traditional locally let contracts, in which they were well placed to win work. Regional jobs are now getting wrapped up into groups of work more suited to the bigger players with national networks and a single point of contact.

Should we be concerned about this development, or resign ourselves to the fact that, in the modern world, big beats small? Well, there is a very real concern that a marked reduction in smaller firms will be a great loss to the industry in terms of local knowledge and skills resources. In this respect, maybe the supply chain needs to rethink its partnering and framework contracts to encourage the participation of smaller contractors and to allocate risk more fairly.

But smaller contractors must also play their part. They must concentrate on what they are good at and become more flexible. They should also work hard to maintain their existing relationships with their clients and talk to larger contractors about getting into supply chain management relationships. No one else is going to do it for them.