Winning pre-contracts strategy and insights with Richard Cowley
Pre-contracts strategy is the part of tendering most teams say they do, but few teams actually run properly. It’s the thinking and shaping that happens before the bid machine kicks in, when you still have choices, influence, and time to reduce risk. In this episode, I’m joined by Richard Cowley, Fulton Hogan’s 30-year tendering veteran, to talk about what strong pre-contracts strategy looks like in the real world, what gets missed when teams leave it too late and why this stage is often the difference between a bid that reads well and a bid that wins.
Richard leads the pre contracts team for Fulton Hogan’s northern region, covering Queensland, Northern Territory and WA, and he’s spent nearly three decades in and around tendering across client, consulting and contractor roles. He has seen the pursuit side from a lot of angles, and he is blunt about what makes the difference.
Early strategy is not a nice-to-have
Richard’s view is simple. If you come to a tender late, chances are you will not win it. You can still spend the time, effort and money, but you are doing it without the context that helps you make smart choices.
That early work is about alignment. Understanding what the opportunity is, what the client is trying to solve, and whether the pursuit is worth the investment. It also looks different depending on sector. Private sector work often allows more direct engagement. Public sector work comes with tighter probity and less room for the relationship building the industry used to rely on.
Probity has changed the game
Richard reflected on how much the industry has shifted. Years ago, networking and entertaining were common. Now, particularly in the public sector, the overlay of probity has made early relationship forming harder. The downside is real. It is harder to truly understand your client and get them to open up early.
That matters because strategy depends on insight. If you cannot build a clear strategy up front, you end up chasing bids you are unlikely to convert. And in a market with a massive pipeline, we cannot afford to waste time being inefficient.
The disconnect
One of the most honest parts of the conversation was the mutual misunderstanding between clients and contractors.
Richard does not think clients truly appreciate the investment that goes into bidding. At the same time, he also thinks contractors do not always appreciate the complexity clients face in getting projects to the start line. Approvals, politics, and external drivers can shape decisions in ways that are invisible from the contractor side.
He shared a sharp example from the Gorgon LNG project. The programme could not be officially updated because it would have triggered a stock market announcement and potentially impacted share price. If you do not see those drivers, you end up frustrated at the project level, arguing about plans that feel disconnected from reality.
On the contractor side, Richard gave a simple example that will feel familiar. Clients will ask, can you just change this line or this number. They often do not see the layers underneath, and how a small change can ripple through an estimate, pricing, risk and approvals. Richard’s point was not to complain. It was to say we need to get better at communicating what the work actually involves, and clients need to get better at stepping into our shoes too.
Lessons learned only work if you actually learn
We talked about reflection and lessons learned, and Richard was candid about how hard it is in practice. Human behaviour gets in the way. Egos get in the way. Nobody likes airing the dirty laundry.
But if you want to win next time, you have to be willing to say the uncomfortable thing. You lost. Then you can ask why. Sometimes there are subjective elements you cannot control. Other times, if you are self-critical, you can see where you missed the mark.
You are only as good as your last project
This is where tendering and delivery collide.
Richard said it plainly. You can have the best tender strategy and the strongest submission, but if you have a distressed project with that client, your chances diminish. The role of the whole organisation in winning work is undervalued. Delivery behaviours shape future conversion.
Richard also pointed out something that sits underneath a lot of conflict. Project managers are incentivised to meet tendered margin and better it. When a project is facing loss, claims recovery becomes a survival mechanism. Without a circuit breaker at an operations level to step back and weigh the strategic relationship, that behaviour can create unnecessary conflict and long-term damage.
Partner selection is not admin
When we moved into partnering, Richard stressed that partner selection is the number one factor to get right on larger pursuits. In Queensland, joint ventures are common, and once projects hit a certain value there can be an unwritten expectation that a JV spreads risk and gives the client more certainty on resourcing.
The hard part is that you often do not have the luxury of time. A tender hits the market and within a week teams are formed. Richard described spending that week on the phone, reading the market, understanding who is aligning with who, and working out what Fulton Hogan brings that is attractive.
His top criteria was behaviours and culture. If you cannot align on how you do business, it will be difficult to survive delivery when the honeymoon ends. After that, you look at what the partner brings that you do not have. Capacity, risk reduction, or a specific skillset.
But there is another layer.
You also need to understand the partner’s reputation with the client. The perfect partner on paper is useless if they have already damaged trust with the client you are trying to win.
Kindness in tendering is not soft
I asked Richard about kindness in tendering, and his answer was grounded.
Tenders are stressful. Planning can reduce stress, but deadlines still land, and people still have personal lives running in parallel. Kindness is noticing that, making it safe for people to speak up, and putting steps in place when someone is under strain. If you do not know what is going on, people push through unfocused, and the tender suffers as well as the person.
Context is what keeps people aligned
A final thread that ran through the conversation was internal alignment.
Richard talked about bringing decision makers on the journey early, especially when approvals go to board level. If you short-circuit that process and present late, you create friction. If you build buy in early, you get support.
I agree with him that this applies at every level. Even junior team members need context. People do better work when they understand why it matters and what their contribution is supporting.
When I asked Richard what capability matters most in tendering, he came back to people.
Optimism. Resilience. Humility. Enjoying the challenge. Being able to work with others and build trusted relationships with clients, partners and your own team.
Because at the end of the day, tendering is not just a process. It is a long game of trust, judgement and choices made well before the tender drops.
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[00:00:49] Deb: Today we're joined by Richard Cowley from Fulton Hogan. Richard, thank you very much for coming to Chasing the Win, a podcast all about tendering. You lead the pre contracts [00:01:00] team for Fulton, Hogan, um, the northern region based in Brisbane, and really you're working at the forefront of, um, pre-engagement with clients and tenders, um, for major transport infrastructure and construction.
[00:01:11] Richard: Deb, great to be here today and thanks for the opportunity, as I said to you first podcast, but, uh, been looking forward to it. Yes, as you said, I'm on the pre contracts lead for Fulton Hogan for the northern region that actually covers Queensland, Northern Territory and wa so it's a fairly broad remit. Um,
[00:01:28] Deb: it is,
[00:01:28] Richard: and and I've been involved, I guess in tendering for quite some time.
[00:01:32] In fact all through my career and it's nearly 30 plus years now. So, but it hasn't always been as a contractor, I've, I've worked on the client side, um, worked on the consulting side for the first part of my career. Um, and, and I've managed to work in addition to that, not just in Australia. I've got a, you'll probably pick up a slight Kiwi twang.
[00:01:51] Um,
[00:01:52] Deb: it's slightly
[00:01:52] Richard: diluted down, slightly diluted good. And, and, uh, also diluted. I've worked around the world and the Caribbean, uh, middle East Africa [00:02:00] and the UK for quite a period of time. So it's quite a, uh, I guess a little bit of an eclectic mix coming into the contracting market here in Australia.
[00:02:08] Deb: Yeah,
[00:02:09] Richard: a lot of my compatriots and and colleagues tend to have gone as a contractor and gone all the way through the, the process.
[00:02:16] Look, for me, it's been a, it's a been a great adventure and a great journey to, to get where we are now and, and certainly the last, uh, 10 years with Fulton Hogan has been very much focused on that front end on, um, contracting major bid pursuit and uh, and trying to convert those opportunities.
[00:02:33] Deb: And in relation to that, how do you approach the early strategy work that happens long before a tender drops?
[00:02:40] Richard: Yeah, it's a good point. Um, if you're coming to a tender late or you know, a couple of months out, chances are you won't win it. So you have to be aligned early to understand what the opportunity is. There's a whole host of ways of how we kind of identify those opportunities, and it depends very much on sector.
[00:02:58] Um, there, there's quite a [00:03:00] difference between public sector and private sector. If I cast my mind back sort of 10, 15 years, the ability to engage with clients and take them out and entertain and, and all of that, um, was, was prevalent throughout the industry and it was an important part of, of networking.
[00:03:17] Much of that has actually disappeared now with the overlay of, of probity. Um, the concern in particular within the public sector of Im proprietary, being accused of. And so that ability is actually diminished quite considerably.
[00:03:32] Deb: It has become harder to
[00:03:33] Richard: understand your client. It's become very hard. And, and look, I understand why I think the downside, it, it has made relationship forming a little more, more challenging in particular that that public sector side, little easier in the private sector, but even that has changed materially over, over the years and again, understand why.
[00:03:52] But there has been a, a negative consequence as a result where the ability to get to really know clients and get them to [00:04:00] open up early has, has certainly drawn back from what it used to be. But establishing a clear strategy I think is really important upfront. And if you don't, you can still have a go, but you're gonna spend a lot of time, a lot of effort, um, and a lot of money chasing bids that you're unlikely to convert.
[00:04:19] And, and that's really what we need to try and avoid and not, not just for our organisation. I think it goes across industry as well. We are going into a period in Sydney, in southeast Queensland and, and, and Queensland with the Olympics and the pipeline ahead of us, we can, ill afford to be wasting time and being inefficient in what we do.
[00:04:38] Deb: Yeah.
[00:04:38] Richard: And, and that goes across the board and, and governments I think are starting to understand that. Um, I don't think the fully embraced it all. Understand.
[00:04:47] Deb: Do you think they truly appreciate yet the amount of investment, time, energy, money that really goes into bid and pursuing bits?
[00:04:55] Richard: No, I don't think they do.
[00:04:56] I think there's a material disconnect and, and look, to be [00:05:00] fair, I think on the contracting side, we don't give enough appreciation to the challenges that government and clients face in terms of getting projects to the start line.
[00:05:11] Deb: Mm.
[00:05:11] Richard: In terms of the approvals, in terms of the politics.
[00:05:14] Deb: Yeah.
[00:05:14] Richard: Some of that's been, you know, I've had experiences through my career where that's been really profound at times.
[00:05:20] Um, you know, I'll give you one example. I worked on the Gorgan l and g project over in WA for, for quite a number of years in a fairly senior role. One of the things that we came up against is that we could not update the programme officially because then the partners Chevron and Shell would've had to announce it to the stock market in the uk, uh, sorry, the us which would've impacted share price.
[00:05:42] Deb: Gosh.
[00:05:42] Richard: So we had an overlying political driver that actually flowed down to that level. And at a project level, if you didn't see that, the frustration was why can't we actually go with a programme that's more relevant to, to what the works are not what was agreed back at the, uh, financial [00:06:00] investment decision stage.
[00:06:01] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:01] Richard: There are things that play outside of our little contractor world.
[00:06:05] Deb: Yes.
[00:06:06] Richard: Uh, that we just need to be a bit more cognizant that we don't always understand our clients as, as well as we can.
[00:06:13] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:13] Richard: The same token, as you pointed out, clients don't understand the level of effort that we put in when it comes to the tender space.
[00:06:20] And you, you'll be awful familiar with that. You've, you've lived and breathed it for a long time. Again, another example, I was talking to a colleague. He was within the defence force in one of the, um, delivery organisations. Um, he stepped out into the private world and into a contractor, um, participated in some cost estimate reviews, and I was speaking to him afterwards and the comment he had was, I had no idea of what you do to build an estimate.
[00:06:46] Deb: Yeah.
[00:06:47] Richard: And so when clients, you know, come to you at times say, oh, can you just change this line or this number? The consequential impacts the layers. Uh, the layers are substantial. We need to get better at communicating with our clients. I think, [00:07:00] um, they, and, and understanding them, they need to get better at living in our shoes a little bit as well when it comes to that level of effort and resource.
[00:07:09] Probably coming back to, to the strategy question, it, it is really important to. Clearly defined for what particular pursuits you're after. What is your edge? Yes. We, we, we call it all sorts of things. Differentiators, unique selling point, whatever it is, at the end of the day, you need to try and find an edge.
[00:07:29] Deb: I define, I define it as what you can give your client that only you can give your client.
[00:07:34] Richard: Correct. It's gotta stand out from everyone else. And, and so it is really important to look at that. Um, you need to look introspectively at the organisation you're with. You need to be very cognizant of the market you're competing against, but not lose sight on what you need to do as well.
[00:07:50] So that's a little bit of a, a fine balance, but that very much goes into that decision making process of, of what we do.
[00:07:58] Deb: How well do you think organisations do [00:08:00] look at themselves in the mirror? Um, I mean, I, I usually use the term, you know, let's find out if you're drinking your own Kool-Aid. So I'm not talking your organisation necessarily, but you know that reflecting critically on what you've done before, reflecting critically on how you could go forward, how well do you really think it's done?
[00:08:20] Richard: I think we like to think we do it well. I think the reality is probably more an average pass I'd, I would suggest. I think it's difficult to get the right balance between optimism, which you need and being quite critical in, in, in what you can do and what you have done.
[00:08:36] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:37] Richard: And where your position in the market is at that point in time.
[00:08:40] And it's not a static thing. It changes it's dynamic.
[00:08:42] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:43] Richard: I think it reflects through too. If you look at, um, you know, the lessons learned type of process that we should all be going through on both projects,
[00:08:52] Deb: it, it hurts, but we've gotta go through it.
[00:08:53] Richard: We, we've gotta go through it. But I, I think, and I reflect, and not just the organisation I'm with now, but a number [00:09:00] of them, uh, we tend to be quite poor at how we disseminate and, and actually learn from the experience.
[00:09:07] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:07] Richard: I think what tends to happen, human behaviours come into play. Um, egos come into play. Um, people presiding over a project, which perhaps hasn't gone as well as you'd like. Um, there's a little bit of protectionism that comes in and, and no one really likes airing the dirty laundry, do they? I think, uh, whether it's projects or, or general life
[00:09:27] Deb: absolutely true.
[00:09:28] It, it's even goes down there to almost to narrative. So, you know, you'll hear people say, we came a close second. Every time I hear a client say, we came a close second, I actually look them in the eye. I say, no, you lost.
[00:09:40] Richard: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Deb: And I know that hurts. But the reason I want you to know you lost is because we want you to win next time.
[00:09:46] Yeah. And so why did you lose? It is required that, that reflection, those lessons learned, the ability to actually say, how can we do it differently next time? Um, but at the same time, sometimes you lose tenders because they have subjective [00:10:00] elements and there's nothing you can do about it.
[00:10:01] Richard: Correct. And we've, we've lost a number of tenders where we look back and we go, ah, yes, I can see, you know, we've had a debrief.
[00:10:07] It's been reasonably thorough. And if we're being quite self-critical, you can actually pick up, we could have got that one better. We didn't quite hit the mark on, on that aspect. And again, as we said before, when you're putting in, you know, weeks and weeks of effort, uh, they can be quite painful.
[00:10:24] Deb: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Richard: Um, but you do need to, to learn from them.
[00:10:26] That's for sure.
[00:10:27] Deb: You've worked across Australia and globally. How has that international exposure shaped your philosophy on building long-term trusted relationships? Either internal relationships with a team, or external relationships with client? In, in the bid phase,
[00:10:44] Richard: for me, because I haven't been a contractor for a, a long, long time, um, I've played across different se uh, spheres, different sectors and, and globally as well.
[00:10:53] I probably have a, I think a more collaborative approach to, to work. I, I think. At the end of the day, you get a [00:11:00] far better outcome. Most people I've worked with do not like conflict. That doesn't always hold true. There's some that sort of seek it out, but generally, I think people, most people in the industry, um, are wanting to do a as good a job as they can at the end of the day.
[00:11:16] Deb: Mm.
[00:11:16] Richard: And so if you can engage with those people and pull them together in a collaborative style, I think you're always gonna get a better outcome. The the challenge we have is, um, when it gets to down to the brass tacks of contract models, and if the contract model doesn't align with the behaviours that, that people are wanting to, to develop and set, it can become very difficult.
[00:11:37] You, you end up with teams retrenching into their respective camps and it's, um, you know, handbags and lawyers and, and claim and dispute notices at 10 paces.
[00:11:47] Deb: Yeah.
[00:11:47] Richard: Which breaks down that, that relationship. But the most enjoyable projects and the most successful I've been involved with, um, and that's not just from a tendering, but then delivery side have been [00:12:00] those where you are working sort of hand in glove with the client.
[00:12:03] You are, you are there and you are taking the hits when you need to. Um, but you are also working to a stage where if it's a client issue, they're more likely to actually stand up and say, you know what? That one's on us. We'll carry that. And so you can keep going forward. It comes down to trust, it comes down to building a degree of trust with, with those clients that you are not out there to, to take advantage.
[00:12:28] Um, you are there to, to do a good job, you will stand by your commitments, but equally, if there's things outside of that, clients will, will take the same philosophy.
[00:12:37] Deb: It's interesting that you say people tend to wanna avoid conflict and so they, they like collaboration. But really what you are describing here is still, it's the careful management of con of conflict and potential conflict.
[00:12:49] It's, it's collaborative management of conflict.
[00:12:52] Richard: Correct.
[00:12:52] Deb: The issue, as you say, is when the contract mechanism itself isn't reflective of the dynamic or the culture or the engagement that [00:13:00] client and contractor or client and provider are looking for. Um, and, and I think that's really interesting because a lot of tenders that we see talk about what is your collaborative approach to, and, and you're encouraged to describe the relationship you're going to build with a client, but then you turn to the next document and the next document is not actually conducive to that.
[00:13:23] At what point do you bring up that disconnect? Do you think that during a tender period you could actually bring up the disconnect between the contractual mechanism you've chosen and the culture you're trying to ask us to, to live by?
[00:13:34] Richard: I think you can try. I think that the challenges, once the tenders started, you've got process and probies kicked in and, and it becomes very difficult to have a, a dialogue rather than a paper-based
[00:13:46] Deb: clarification
[00:13:47] Richard: process Clarification.
[00:13:48] Deb: Yeah.
[00:13:49] Richard: I think though, you know, there's, there's ways you can go about things as well, so. We've been delivering some lump sum contracts for the Depart Department of Defence. Um, the defence contract is [00:14:00] fairly, um, stringent and robust.
[00:14:02] Deb: Yes.
[00:14:03] Richard: Um, but even then there's ways, instead of just dropping in a notice for what you think might be a claim or a variation, there's the ability to actually go and sit down and talk and say, well, this is where we're at.
[00:14:14] We believe we've got entitlement here. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna place this in. Um, and so you can forewarn and you can have a discussion before you resort to actually, um, you know, dropping the piece of paper on the desk.
[00:14:25] Deb: Yeah.
[00:14:25] Richard: Those sorts of things, I think go a long way to helping people understand where you're coming from.
[00:14:30] It doesn't mean to say you're gonna get them up. And as a contractor, I always tell my guys, we need to protect the position under the contract. So if the contract has obligations around notices and time bars, you need to protect it. It doesn't mean to say you have to flow through with enacting all of those notices that you put in.
[00:14:48] And again, a discussion with your client will help set a scene where they start to see and develop some trust.
[00:14:55] Deb: Mm.
[00:14:55] Richard: I think like all things, you, you have some players in the game who take [00:15:00] advantage.
[00:15:00] Deb: Yes.
[00:15:00] Richard: And that tends to, um, to, to spoil it a little bit for, for others. Yeah. But I think you still gotta keep pushing for the idea of collaboration.
[00:15:10] I think we will always get a better outcome if we can work more closely with clients. The earlier we get involved, the better. Um, there's a strong push now for more collaborative contracting. I think the whole of industry recognises, and particularly again, coming back to southeast Queensland, we've got such a pipeline of work.
[00:15:28] The industry recognises that we have to embrace collaborative contracting.
[00:15:32] Deb: Mm. There's more and more framework approaches. Um, more and more types of alliancing
[00:15:38] Richard: Correct.
[00:15:38] Deb: Collaboration. Yeah. We,
[00:15:39] Richard: we've got more challenges over the next five years to deliver work than we probably had for a long, long time.
[00:15:44] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:45] Richard: Um, you go back to the size of the pipeline and it's, you know, it's even bigger than what we had in the LNG boom back in sort of 2008 to 2014 15.
[00:15:54] Deb: Wow.
[00:15:55] Richard: What wasn't happening then though, is we've still got a fairly buoyant New South Wales market. [00:16:00] Victoria's slower, Adelaide's got a lot happening. Mm. So there's a lot more pressure on the industry to deliver this, um, sort of Australian wide portfolio.
[00:16:09] Yes. And in particular in SEQ. So how do we overcome that? We have to get more productive. How do we do that? Or one of the key ways has to be to talk more.
[00:16:17] Deb: Yeah.
[00:16:17] Richard: To find ways to unblock some of the roadblocks that we have in place. It's, it's really interesting because productivity today is less than what it was 10 years ago.
[00:16:27] And that's on a broad measure when you look at units of output or widgets of output per, per, per person, or per dollar spend.
[00:16:34] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:34] Richard: What we do now in a project though, is so much more extensive than what we used to do. So in projects today, we do a lot of work around training and pulling people through.
[00:16:44] We did a lot of, we do a lot of work around First Nations and Torres Strait Islander engagement and how do we maximise that employment and the flow down to indigenous business enterprises and the like. We do a lot more work around social, around engaging with community, managing [00:17:00] environmentals, much more of a focus, um, and sustainability and all those great initiatives that we do.
[00:17:06] And I'm not saying they're not right, they are the right things to do, but that comes at cost and time and time. And so we need to collectively understand as an industry, as government, as clients, the more that we do, the less output per dollar spend we're actually gonna get.
[00:17:24] Deb: Yep.
[00:17:25] Richard: The question I suppose we all need to ask, have we got the right balance?
[00:17:29] Because we could always keep, continue to do more and more and more and use projects as a way to, um, perhaps enact government policy outside of the actual infrastructure build. The downside is that community taxpayers will not get as much infrastructure because we're spending more to achieve those outcomes.
[00:17:47] Deb: Pick and choose your projects and your tenders that you are putting these targets and aspirations and policy fulfilment aspects on at the moment. Then there is a tendency that they just [00:18:00] apply cut blanc. That, that there's just an expectation that every project will be able to give back some way, either directly or indirectly, but sometimes with a timeframe squeeze.
[00:18:13] You need to point more to to, to the legacy after the project rather than the legacy dur the development of it during Yeah. The project. And, and with these, um, you know, we've got an, an Olympic sized deadline, you can't achieve everything with within the, the timeframe that you've been given.
[00:18:28] Richard: No, I think that's right.
[00:18:28] And I Pope, over the next couple of years we'll start to take a broader approach as you're, you're looking at, there's a, a massive legacy benefit of what we're doing. There is a hard end date that does not move. Does not move,
[00:18:40] Deb: move, cannot move.
[00:18:41] Richard: And I don't think we really understand what happens if we don't get there.
[00:18:46] Right. What happens if,
[00:18:47] Deb: I've been thinking that too.
[00:18:48] Richard: What happens if some of this infrastructure that we all got the best intent and the optimistic approach. And I think that's wonderful. And I think it is generational what we can do. And I'm hugely excited about it,
[00:18:58] Deb: but we have to manage the risks [00:19:00] that we might not get as far as we think we will.
[00:19:02] Richard: What do we do? And at what point do we put this flag up and go, oh gee, we've not
[00:19:06] Deb: gonna get there. If,
[00:19:07] Richard: um, and at that point there we will have to be some serious sort of, um, compromised would be probably the right word. What are we not gonna do? What are we gonna do to make sure we've got a minimum viable outcome?
[00:19:20] Deb: Yep.
[00:19:20] Richard: Recognising we can do the other stuff later. Funding will come into play as well.
[00:19:24] Deb: Yep.
[00:19:25] Richard: The government does not have an endless bucket that's got funds. It's, it's assigned and they're committed to that. And that's, that's wonderful. But some of these large projects not fully funded either. And then you've got the challenges of.
[00:19:38] Inflationary environment we're going into and, and in that pre-contract space, that becomes a really challenging risk aspect. We have to try and understand and we have to try and manage. And you know, I've seen reports of, um, from some of the, the, the qss out there, quantity surveys, um, escalation in the order of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10% over the 4, 3, 4 year [00:20:00] period.
[00:20:00] Deb: But you've got a crystal ball, don't you? You
[00:20:02] Richard: can see it all. Well, I, no, I do. And I, you know, I've got a, a, a cloth that sits over it on the bench and no one else can look at it otherwise.
[00:20:07] Deb: And, and I come in and I will tell your fortune sign on the outside
[00:20:10] Richard: of your office, so it adds a com it adds a complication.
[00:20:12] We've all got to, to get around our head around it, but as I said, it makes it pretty interesting at the moment.
[00:20:17] Deb: I wanna go back to something you said earlier about communicating with clients. Not necessarily like putting the contract in the draw, uh, obviously, um, maintaining your position, safeguarding your position, but putting the contract in the draw.
[00:20:30] I actually delivered some training a number of years ago to a tier three contractor. Um, they were actually losing their bids because of their operations. They were losing their bids because of the way their CAS and their CMS were talking to the client and were using the contract and the training actually focused on the fact that you are the first step to us winning more work.
[00:20:51] And I don't, you know, it was the, I came into the organisation 'cause they said they don't seem to understand that the client's not giving us, and this was [00:21:00] mostly private sector. The client's not giving us any more work because they don't like the way we are working with them. And that training was really enlightening 'cause I actually saw a number of light bulb moments where, um, the people that were in those roles went, oh, if I just pick up the phone and explain the context first, if I just go in, we write about no surprise approaches all the time.
[00:21:23] But whether that translates into delivery, the no surprise approach even in that sort of contract. So I, it was interesting 'cause I hadn't reflected on that in a long time. And I think it's something that probably need to bring to the fore again, with clients that everything you do during your delivery and your operations impacts your ability to win again with that client.
[00:21:43] Would you agree?
[00:21:44] Richard: A hundred percent. And we're only as good as our last project, right? Ah,
[00:21:48] Deb: yes.
[00:21:49] Richard: It's played out many times where you can have the, the, the best team in your tender camp and obviously Tender Plus will be part of that.
[00:21:56] Deb: Oh, oh, absolutely. Yes,
[00:21:57] Richard: yes. Without that, um, you could have the, the [00:22:00] winning strategy, the case studies that back it up.
[00:22:02] But if you've got a problem project with that client out there where things are in distress, where the behaviours are, are, are reverting more to contractual, um, you know, as a contractor, when you are facing a significant loss. It's a major deal. I think sometimes clients don't understand that that stress, but the ability to then convert that, that tender, no matter, the quality
[00:22:25] Deb: just diminishes over
[00:22:26] Richard: it.
[00:22:26] It does diminish. Yeah. And, and so the role of the whole of the organisation as a spearhead to try and convert work is probably undervalued.
[00:22:34] Deb: I often draw a Venn diagram, the intersection between business development, pre contracts, the, the, the commercial and tendering team and operations winning tenders is the sweet spot between all three of those dynamics when they come.
[00:22:48] When that can come together, it can be some of the most enjoyable work, correct. That you have. Honestly,
[00:22:54] Richard: the way we set up project teams and we are no different to others. You have, you know, delivery teams, [00:23:00] project managers, um, and you've got right the way up to CEOs and, and we are incentivized to meet commercial return and performance project managers are incentivized to meet tendered margin and better it if they can.
[00:23:13] And so it, it develops this approach where you can, you can at the project level become very focused on the return and that becomes focused on your claims recovery and that behaviour can lead to more conflict. I think the organisations that really get it right, they have that circuit breaker level, that operations type of level who can step back and say, there's a strategic imperative to not chase that one.
[00:23:38] Because if we do, it's gonna really put our client off site and we've got all these things happening.
[00:23:43] Deb: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Richard: In the background.
[00:23:44] Deb: Right. See the massive picture in the, in the interrelationship within it.
[00:23:48] Richard: You get some project managers who are able to step above their project and do that, but typically they're really focused downwards as they need to be.
[00:23:55] So unless you do have that in place and the ability to strategically step back, [00:24:00] um, it can be be challenging. But even saying that, you know, we've had situations where I've thought would pull together a fantastic tender, um, really strong submission and we haven't got through. And I reflect back on those and recognise, oh, maybe at that time that project may not have been doing quite as well as we thought.
[00:24:19] Deb: I thought it was,
[00:24:20] Richard: you know, and, and again, trying to truly understand within the business, the state of some of their projects is not always something that's talked about too much either.
[00:24:28] Deb: I've really enjoyed, and I suppose this doesn't apply quite as much in the, in the contracting space because your project's finished, but, um, incumbency in the service space is really interesting because strategically, I've often worked with clients and said, what's the worst thing you're doing at the moment for that particular client?
[00:24:45] What are you doing really badly? Where are all your elephants? You know, there's a herd of elephants running through the room here, not just one. I wanna know where they all are. They seem to be invisible elements, but elephants, but let's, let's expose them. And we've one off the back of addressing those [00:25:00] inefficiencies, addressing those perceptions of weakness, um, addressing those perceptions of a lack of communication or an adversarial approach to certain things.
[00:25:09] I do think often tender strategy is seen as separate from current operations, and I think the more that you look into what you're currently doing with your clients, particularly in an incumbency position, the more likely you are to actually be successful next time around.
[00:25:26] Richard: Mm, no, I think it's quite, uh, astute what you're saying.
[00:25:28] Deb: I wanna talk about partnering just quickly with you. Um, effective partnering obviously, or critical on major bids, you can't do it all. You need frenemies. Um, how do you evaluate potential partners early on and, and make decisions that. We'll make decisions for the right partnership that, that, you know, will stand up under, under the pressure of competitive tenders.
[00:25:49] Richard: The importance, I just wanna stress on the importance of the partner selection.
[00:25:52] Deb: Yeah.
[00:25:53] Richard: I, I had a week's, uh, down at Melbourne Business School in an executive leadership course recently, and part of that we had to [00:26:00] unpick a particular focus and build a strategy around that. And, and I went through quite a detailed process looking at what we do as a business and how do we do it, and what are the real key factors to, in my case, I wanted to convert more tenders, I wanna get better conversion and time.
[00:26:16] And again, it came back to on the bigger ones, partner selection is the number one criteria you have to get right. If you want to convert projects when they get outside of your ability to deliver them by yourself. If I look at the, the landscape in Queensland, we do a lot of joint venture work. It's just the nature of the work in particular for, um, TMR transport for main roads.
[00:26:38] Soon as it gets above a certain value, there's almost an unwritten expectation. A joint venture's a good thing because it gives TMR more certainty on resource. It spreads a little bit of the love.
[00:26:50] Deb: Yep.
[00:26:50] Richard: And they want that to take place.
[00:26:51] Deb: Spreads a little bit of the risk,
[00:26:52] Richard: spreads the risk. So that selection of partner becomes really critical early on to try and work it out.
[00:26:59] And [00:27:00] it's not always easy if you read all the manuals and the te you know how to tender, you'll take time and you'll talk to everyone and you evaluate and everything else really. Does time present that luxury
[00:27:11] Deb: signed up before you can get 'em?
[00:27:12] Richard: Correct. Quite often we, um, we'll find out at the industry will find out about a tender that suddenly come.
[00:27:18] We may have known roughly, it'll suddenly hit the market and within a week you'll have contractors, designers, teamed and formed. And that week, um, I'll typically spend most of the time on the phone
[00:27:31] Deb: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Richard: Um, talking, understanding who's lining with, who have our own preference where we wanna play. But again, we are not always in the driving seat.
[00:27:42] Yeah. And so you need to understand where, where you are, what, what is it that you bring to a partnership that is attractive? What, what, um, do you wanna see in a partner? Right? I think the number one,
[00:27:54] Deb: which partners do you really wanna work with
[00:27:56] Richard: ultimately? Well, I was gonna say, I think the number one thing is, is behaviours and [00:28:00] culture.
[00:28:00] We talk about culture a lot and what is culture and trying to define it. It's always a little bit, uh, challenging and difficult, but unless you can establish a relationship in a, in a similar culture, how you go about, um, business, it's gonna become exceedingly difficult to maintain the relationship over delivery.
[00:28:19] Absolutely. Over delivery. And, and look, let's be honest, in the, in the tender period, we're in the kind of the honeymoon stage because it's all ahead of us and it's all exciting. And if we win, great. But you need to be certain that over the long term, when things get a little bit challenging. The relationships are there that you can sit down, you can actually talk and you can be quite frank about if they're not meeting their requirements and, and commitments or if you are not, and find a way through it.
[00:28:43] So that that culture relationships at key levels I think is really important. And then you look at what is it that they can bring that we don't have. Sometimes it might just be capacity, sometimes it might just be reducing risk. Other times it might be, well, we don't have that [00:29:00] particular skillset, you know, maybe it's a marine skillset or maybe it's an airport.
[00:29:05] And so that becomes why you might align.
[00:29:08] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:08] Richard: Um, maybe
[00:29:08] Deb: it's, but it's, but it's such a strategic decision. It is, isn't it? It's, you've got your client then in the back of your mind as to what, how they're going to perceive that partnership. How, how, whether that's actually gonna fulfil how they define capacity, whether they want a smaller player, a bigger player, like I suppose what the discussion just shows that it is, it is so strategic and it's so important, again, to start that process of partnership development super, super, super early and to be able to have the time to recognise whether you actually want to work with certain organisations in an ongoing capacity.
[00:29:45] Richard: Yes. And, and to that end, you know, in my role, I need to understand implicitly what we do and what we're good at, what we're not, where our strengths are. I need to have a pretty broad understanding of what the market is as well. If I'm gonna go and partner with contractor A or B. [00:30:00] I better understand what they do, what their current projects are, how are they going, what's their perception with the client?
[00:30:07] It's all very well us partnering with the perfect partner, right? Culture, and then finding out, down on the track they've pissed that partner off. Excuse my language, and there's no way you're gonna get through. Um, so, you know, we, we've got a whole lot of processes, um, internally and documentation and everything else.
[00:30:22] But again, I'll be honest, I tend to find that just having a broad understanding of that market, um, thinking ahead and processing it, um, that the documentation can follow. But most of the time we will land on the top two or three and through some further analysis we'll land what our preferred is quite quickly.
[00:30:42] Deb: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Richard: But it's from knowing the market, it's like the old story about the, um, the old bloke and, and the warehouse. The machine's broken down, he comes along and uh, has a piece of chalk and he puts a sign where the problem is no one else could solve it. And he gives an invoice for $2 to the piece of chalk, [00:31:00] $30,000 for knowing where to put it.
[00:31:02] It's understanding the industry and it's the time you have in there to, to form relationships with many of the, the clients. And as you say it, it is f friend frenemies
[00:31:12] Deb: f you can't burn bridges. And, and, but I think that goes for, for any industry, um, it's, it's really interesting. I work a lot with the not-for-profit industry and never the twain shall meet with any of them.
[00:31:23] And I really encourage all of them to look at their purpose and to realise there's so much alignment there. But because it's such a competitive environment, they tend to be enemies rather than friends. And one of my, one of my goals at the moment is to advocate for joint venturing of not-for-profits, for funding and grants.
[00:31:43] Um, and I, I see it across industry though. Mm-hmm. So you've, you've gotta be mindful. I, I don't call competitors competitors anymore. Um, I dunno if you've read Simon Sinek's, um, book The Infinite Game, but he calls 'em Worthy Rivals. And I think that language really helps because if you [00:32:00] perceive the people in your industry who you compete against as worthy rivals, then you're also more willing to partner with them.
[00:32:06] And that, that positive perception influences how you then behave with them.
[00:32:11] Richard: And it's interesting, you know, we had a, um, there was a industry breakfast yesterday morning and I enjoy them because I go in there and I'll see all my counterparts from the other, and we tend to actually almost congregate Yeah.
[00:32:22] And mingle and talk about where things are at. And, and so that level of relationship and trust you do need to build and you need to have that to, to help secure which partnerships you, you want to go into.
[00:32:33] Deb: So insight into your pipeline, obviously essential in p pre contracts. Um, what are your go-to methods for uncovering early opportunities?
[00:32:41] Uh, without giving too much away? Yeah. No, the broader, I won't give the
[00:32:44] Richard: secret source.
[00:32:45] Deb: Yeah. Don't give the secret source away. Yeah.
[00:32:46] Richard: Depends which sector we're run. If we are talking about the private sector, then we need to be talking directly to clients and we need to be talking early and understanding what it is that they have coming up.
[00:32:57] Deb: Define early for me.
[00:32:58] Richard: Oh, look, I'd like to be a couple of years [00:33:00] out from a project
[00:33:00] Deb: say that and scare people
[00:33:01] Richard: all the time. Understanding, understanding what the project is. Yeah. And, and the bigger the scale of the project, the more important that timeframe tends to be. If we're talking the, uh, the public sector and, you know, state road authorities are a big, big client of ours, department of Defence, then it's a little bit more difficult to engage with the clients.
[00:33:19] It's not impossible. You still need to do that. Um, we will quite often use the relationships formed on projects as a way in to, to develop that trust and talk about what else is coming. You know, I'll catch up with, with key client members, um, and they'll, they'll talk about what they can.
[00:33:36] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:36] Richard: Um, we'll go to industry events and, and listen.
[00:33:39] And a little bit is listening to the, the market grapevine. And one does exist. Um, you know, it's interesting. We'll submit a tender and we'll wait, and then on the day of ward, typically within half an hour, I'll know every outcome. The market does communicate like that, and, and I think that's a good thing.
[00:33:58] I think it's, it helps us all [00:34:00] understand we are in or not. Um, as a, as a contract, we'd much rather prefer to know early we're in Yes. If not, cut us free, we'll go off. That's fine. All those mechanisms help build a, a picture of what the pipeline is and when we have a fairly robust database that we track it all in.
[00:34:17] And I update that whenever I hit a little bit of tidbit that this might be coming early or, or late. Uh, you need to keep a watch on funding where that's coming from. So particularly with, with state government.
[00:34:28] Deb: Mm.
[00:34:28] Richard: Um,
[00:34:28] Deb: people don't like reading budget papers for bedtime stories. No, but I think they're excellent.
[00:34:32] Richard: They, they do provide insight as to where the money's coming from and, uh, every project needs to to, to lead back to the, to the funding.
[00:34:41] Deb: I wanna come back to one word you said in that you said listening. And I thought that was wonderful because client listening, I sort of, it sounds like a wanky term, really land listening, but that's, that's what it's all about.
[00:34:54] It's actually about sitting back and listening.
[00:34:56] Richard: It is, it's
[00:34:57] Deb: not telling them about you, but [00:35:00] asking them the open questions and allowing the space to actually hear what they're saying.
[00:35:05] Richard: I think most clients, you know, we try to work with repeat clients more than not. Um, because there's that degree of trust one, we know they're gonna pay as well.
[00:35:14] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:15] Richard: But typically those clients know who you are as well. Conversely, especially if you're doing a project for them, at that point in time, they, they know who you are. Mm. So you don't need to go in there with all guns blazing. This is a sales pitch. Right, right, right. Look what we can do, aren't we great.
[00:35:29] And, um, I think if you can just sit back and, and take it in a little bit and listen to what their problems are.
[00:35:36] Deb: Yep.
[00:35:36] Richard: Remember that they are people as well.
[00:35:39] Deb: Yep.
[00:35:39] Richard: Right. They have their own challenges and the work life and personal life. And, and if you can develop a little bit of rapport outside of the immediate business, that that always helps as well.
[00:35:50] They're just people.
[00:35:51] Deb: I'm gonna throw something at you. I, and I've, I've mentioned it before separately, and there is part of this podcast that's gonna talk about it, but I often talk about kindness in [00:36:00] tendering. What's your perspective on that?
[00:36:01] Richard: I think it's important when we're doing the tender with our tender teams.
[00:36:04] Um, I think that's important. Um, I think, you know, you've gone through tenders, they can be stressful. Right. And a lot of it comes down to planning as to how stressful they'll be. But you do have to be kind with people in teams. Um, you know, we can't lose sight in the industry that if we want to keep people and retain people, that people have a whole host of their own things going on at the same time.
[00:36:28] And just because a client's decided to drop a date here and all this work has to be done, doesn't mean that aligned with lines with someone's personal life at the same time. So I think it's, it is important to, to reflect on that and understand that, um, it, it, it doesn't make it easy, but at least if you understand, you can put steps in place to counter.
[00:36:49] There are always things we can do to offset if someone's not quite there, if someone's under stress, that there are things we can do if we know
[00:36:58] Deb: that's it. Yeah.
[00:36:59] Richard: Um, if [00:37:00] we don't know, and that person keeps, you know, pushing through doesn't necessarily lead to a good outcome on the tender. 'cause they might not be focused.
[00:37:07] Deb: Yeah.
[00:37:07] Richard: And it certainly doesn't lead to a good outcome personally, in their view of, of that piece of work.
[00:37:12] Deb: Yeah. Absolutely. So bid, no bid. Mm. What's the most critical factor in your perspective to make that final decision to invest in a bid?
[00:37:21] Richard: I think it's being really honest with yourself. Do you have an angle to win?
[00:37:26] Hmm.
[00:37:27] Deb: Well that's a real, I love that.
[00:37:29] Richard: You know, it, it, it costs a lot to bid. We, we, we touched on it before. Um, yeah. A big bid, a big design and construct bid, we might spend up near close to 1% of the project value.
[00:37:40] Deb: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Richard: In the tender phase. I think you need to be confident that you can put up an offer that has an angle where you can win.
[00:37:49] Um, we recently, you know, some work up in North Queensland, most of the market went for it and we decided not to. And the reason being like, oh, we might have got through, but I [00:38:00] didn't have any real angle to do that.
[00:38:01] Deb: Yep.
[00:38:02] Richard: And we had one or two other things on at the time. 'cause the other point, you need to understand everything you do bid is something else you won't.
[00:38:08] Tendering can be quite a tough game. Um, we, we put a lot of effort in as a team over a short sprint period. You put the documentation in, which is extensive in itself. You sit there for goodness knows how long, and then one day you'll find out you're successful or you're not. If you're not, you can pretty much put all that work and effort into the bin.
[00:38:28] And if you are, then you'll have a relatively small celebratory period. Yeah.
[00:38:34] Deb: You'll go, yay. And then you'll get to
[00:38:35] Richard: work before you hand it to a delivery team and they start poking holes and all the things you missed and, and whatever else. Right. And then you're onto the next one.
[00:38:43] Deb: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Richard: So it's a very, very cyclical process.
[00:38:46] And so I think it's important to, to understand and reflect on that. I think this is a bit of a game. In some ways it's an important game, but just keep it in perspective as well. We need to have a little bit of resilience in the game of tendering [00:39:00] to recognise we are not gonna win them all. Um, there'll be some, we really want to win and we don't.
[00:39:06] And that's tough. But we also have to be a little resilient and recognise that the sun will come up again tomorrow. There'll be another tender opportunity, and it may actually be a longer term better outcome. And I've seen that time and again where we've missed key bids. We thought this was really important.
[00:39:25] It hasn't gone through and we're disappointed and within six or 12 months something else had come through and had we won it, we'd never played on this one.
[00:39:33] Deb: One door closes, another one opens,
[00:39:35] Richard: the other one opens. So
[00:39:36] Deb: even wider
[00:39:37] Richard: sometimes that is the case, right? Yeah, I think absolute. I think you need to stay resilient, stay optimistic and recognise
[00:39:43] Deb: we are not to bid.
[00:39:45] Richard: Correct. Some of the best projects we've done are the ones we never bid.
[00:39:48] Deb: That's it.
[00:39:49] Richard: When I look at the sidelines at them,
[00:39:51] Deb: pre-contract teams really sit at the, the intersection of, of client expectations, internal capability and competitive [00:40:00] markets. You know, how do you align your internal stakeholders so that they opportunity, they understand what the opportunities and risks are that go into winning?
[00:40:10] Richard: It's a good question. And look, with within our immediate tender teams, we have some quite diverse sort of personality types. You know, some of our estimators are quite introvert and they, they plug away, um, like all organisations, there's varying degrees of governance structure and internal approvals and sign off.
[00:40:26] Bringing those people along on the journey. In particular the people who are gonna sign off. And so if we have a very large project goes up to board level, bringing them on the journey from the early stage and to, to explain the rationale and the thinking behind why we might be wanting to partner with this player here and explaining it and getting them on board is really important.
[00:40:47] 'cause once you've got 'em on board, you're not gonna have that challenge. Yeah. They're gonna be supporting and they're gonna be behind you.
[00:40:52] Deb: They won't chuck an albatross.
[00:40:53] Richard: Correct.
[00:40:54] Deb: Sweep in poop and
[00:40:55] Richard: leave. But if you try and progress all, all through and short circuit some of the [00:41:00] approvals and then you put it up.
[00:41:02] That can be a bit more challenging.
[00:41:03] Deb: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:41:05] Richard: Early discussion and, and you know, now organisation
[00:41:07] Deb: early, early, real buy-in.
[00:41:09] Richard: Yeah, I, I think so. And, and look for me it's great. I've got a direct line in our organisation to our CEO and uh, and, and the group CEO. So if I see something, I want to talk about it, I'll go and just chew the fat.
[00:41:21] Deb: Yeah.
[00:41:21] Richard: This is what I'm thinking. This is where I'm thinking about heading on this one. Are you comfortable? We can explore that and bring them on the journey, but do it early.
[00:41:30] Deb: I really think that approach works at all levels of the organisation. You know, providing context for why we are doing things the way we are doing things.
[00:41:37] Even the most junior people on bids need context. They need to feel that whatever contribution they make, they're making that contribution to something strategic. I remember back, I, I was working in a job, um, in the Solomon Islands is a whole nother world, but I asked a project coordinator to bike fire extinguishers and she had, you know, seven years of uni behind her and she's like, why are [00:42:00] you asking me to buy fire extinguishers?
[00:42:02] And I said, oh, because we're about to, you know, support the government to put this person on trial and his supporters are likely to burn down the courthouse. And she's like, best bit of context I've ever been given and I've taken that since, you know, I think I was 28 when I worked out. I had to give somebody context, but to give everybody context along the journey of the bid so that they understand what their contribution is, either at that coordination level or the way up to the approval level.
[00:42:28] Richard: Yeah, couldn't agree more.
[00:42:30] Deb: So looking across your nearly two decades, it's probably three then, right? Three, well three in everything and two in pre contracts. What do you see as the most necessary capability required to excel in tendering?
[00:42:41] Richard: I think you need to be able to stay optimistic in what you're doing.
[00:42:45] You need to enjoy it. Yeah. You know, you need to enjoy the challenge with it. As I said, it's not always easy. Uh uh, you certainly need to have some resilience. You need to wanna work with people. Certainly at my level, a lot of what I do is about relationships. It's about [00:43:00] forming, um, trusted relationships with clients, potential partners, with our design partners and and also within the team.
[00:43:07] Deb: Yeah.
[00:43:07] Richard: Um, you're gonna ask the team to put in some extra effort over and above their normal. And when you've got big tenders with hard deadlines, teams put huge efforts in. We have people sometimes working all nighters just to meet that date. Try to avoid it wherever we can. And it's important afterwards to reflect that and say, well, I don't wanna see you for another week in the office.
[00:43:28] Off you go. But it comes down to, I think at the end of the day, people. So if you can, if you can relate to people, if you can have some optimism in what we're doing, um, be a little bit humble and a bit of resilience and I think you'll go a long way.
[00:43:41] Deb: Had an absolutely wonderful chat. Thank you so much.
[00:43:43] Thank
[00:43:44] Richard: you
[00:43:44] Deb: for joining us on the podcast and I will see you soon for a coffee. No doubt.
[00:43:48] Richard: Sounds good.
[00:43:50]
