Know Your Prospect's Project BSE

The construction M&E contract world can be a dark place, full of shadows.

Contractors on the biggest tickets are felt by some to value one attribute above all others when awarding subcontracts; BSE, Big Site Experience.

This three letter acronym I’d only ever come across before as mad cow disease or for any stock exchange in a place with the initial ‘B’.

Here, it is the essential element for getting work on a large job.

This annoyed me for several reasons:

more detailed suitability can come from elsewhere

big deals do not automatically breed the best people

any deal is ‘one sig fig’, (1sf), take the telephone-number and ignore all the zeroes

big deals don’t necessarily mean big margins

shutting out other perspectives can be suicidal

My career began at a time when Tender Responses often asked for CVs of key vendor players. Sales, Delivery, Maintenance, Receptionist.

I remember asking what one potential buyer was looking for. Only to be scolded with a dismissive, “when we see it we’ll know”. Not the hottest.

Every project surely has its BSE. The one over-riding trait which could trounce all others.

Perhaps the M&E world of plumbers and sparkys could be a useful analogy to share and find that vital intel.