Whether bid economics survive contact with delivery: tender assumptions, pricing, risk allocation, milestone payments, escalation protection, project controls and cash conversion after award.
The pattern
Margin is won at bid, lost at handover, and buried in the accounts. The bid promised what delivery could not do at the price. The contract carried risks nobody priced. The forecast said what the last one said, until it could not. Each function did its job; the system between them leaked.
What we examine
- Tender assumptions and pricing — whether the price carries the risk it is taking on
- Risk allocation and contract terms — milestone structures, escalation protection, contingency and long-duration economics
- Bid governance — the gates, authorities and evidence between an estimate and a commitment
- Handover — whether what was priced is what delivery mobilises against
- Delivery controls — budget, commitments, cost-to-complete and estimate-at-completion discipline
- Forecast integrity — independent challenge of the EAC before it surprises the Board
- Variations and claims — capturing the change the contract already entitles you to
- Cash conversion — billing, milestones and the working capital the project consumes
One discipline runs through all of it: accounting revenue, billed revenue, cash receipts, earned value, operational progress and milestone achievement are six different numbers. We never let them pretend to be one.
Typical mandate outputs
- Bid governance review — how work is qualified, priced, approved and committed, against the standard the contract value deserves.
- Contract-economics assessment — what the signed terms do to margin and cash, and what to renegotiate, protect or price next time.
- Delivery control uplift plan — the controls, cadence and ownership needed to hold the bid margin through delivery.
Where it is used
Live bids that deserve independent challenge before submission; newly won contracts entering handover; projects whose forecasts have stopped being believed; and businesses stepping up to larger contracts where the governance has to grow before the order book does. Sector depth in power and energy, infrastructure and construction, mining services and rail, terminals and logistics.