The third tender won’t fix what the first one exposed
A sovereign LNG buyer keeps rejecting the only bid it gets, then re-tendering. Rate is the wrong lever when supply is single-source.
Insights
What we publish. What stays inside the work.
We publish conclusions from live engagements. The methods and models that create those results remain part of the client work.
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The three most recent
The file decides the percentage, not the spend
On a $1 billion project the gap between 90% and 98% recovered is $80 million, and paperwork decides it, not spend.
Category management is not a spend cube
Grouping contracts by spend is how 22% of tenders end up reusing the last scope of work, unrevised.
All insights
Conclusions from the practice
Can every partner in the JV see the deal holds the line?
Assurance is not the audit. It is the reason the audit finds nothing worth writing up.
Read →What is should-cost modeling?
Negotiating from a supplier's quote means negotiating from their number. A should-cost model gives you your own.
Read →What is spend analysis in procurement?
Few structures fragment spend as thoroughly as a joint venture. Visibility is the first lever, not the last.
Read →What is procurement risk management?
Most procurement risk does not originate at award. It accumulates during execution, when nobody is watching.
Read →What is total cost of ownership?
The cheapest bid on paper is sometimes the most expensive decision a procurement team makes.
Read →Commercial architecture for first-of-a-kind hydrogen infrastructure
Tender architecture for a national hydrogen-storage programme - a world first at this scale - delivered in three weeks against a four-to-six-month internal estimate.
Read →Why 95% of AI pilots fail - and what the other 5% share
The other 5% have one thing in common, and it is not the model.
Read →Partner in offshore exploration and field development
Commercial architecture before first gas - mostly before the first well.
Read →Does focus on rates make sense?
Cutting rates feels decisive. Most of the leakage sits elsewhere - and stays there.
Read →Hidden in plain sight
The contract-holder community is usually the largest unmanaged team in the company.
Read →Conflict, or conflicting KPIs?
When departments fight, look at their KPIs before their personalities.
Read →Unlocking value to the bottom line
A saving that never reaches the bottom line is a report, not a saving.
Read →Getting the procurement management system right
The system is rarely the problem. What it is asked to enforce usually is.
Read →Strategic sourcing is not a sourcing strategy
The two are routinely confused. One is a document; the other is a discipline.
Read →The art of the deal
A tender is not a purchasing exercise. It is where value is created - or conceded.
Read →Drilling cost transformation
Wells dominate the capex. Contract strategy decides what they cost.
Read →Materials management: showstopper or money maker
Inventory and obsolescence - quietly a showstopper, occasionally a money maker.
Read →Misalignment with the business plan
Capex and opex plans that never meet the business plan produce work that should not exist.
Read →Delivering despite budget constraints
Budgets get cut. Commitments don't. Delivering anyway is a discipline, not a mood.
Read →Deliver as planned
Most project surprises were visible early. Predictability is a choice made at the start.
Read →The DNA of a procurement department
Same tools, same market, very different results. The difference is DNA.
Read →Local content: the synergy nobody plans for
Local content works when it is designed as capability, not counted as compliance.
Read →The conclusions are public. The mechanisms are not.
A demonstration is where the two meet: your scenario, walked through The Workbench, with the doctrine doing the work in front of you. Every demonstration ends with a priced, dated next step.
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