This guide provides concrete advice on the early considerations, preparation, tendering and contracting of strategic partnerships. The guide is particularly aimed at clients and their advisors in the early phases, but also provides the delivery team with valuable insight into the client’s considerations and advice on preparation and contribution in the early phases.
2021
23
Strategic partnerships create opportunities for long-term collaboration with greater budget certainty and better quality in construction projects. Strategic partnerships are a relatively new form of agreement and collaboration in construction, where a client tenders a portfolio of upcoming tasks over several years in a single package to a delivery team. This collaboration form opens up significant opportunities for innovation, efficiency improvements and value creation across individual projects.
The guide is based on experiences from ongoing and planned strategic partnerships and presents principles, opportunities, pitfalls and good advice rather than specific solution models. Each partnership must be adapted to the specific client’s business and culture, the involved companies, and the current market situation.
Værdibyg and REBUS have developed two guides on strategic partnerships. This first guide focuses on the journey from initial idea to signed contract, while the second guide “Implementation of the Collaboration” addresses the establishment and ongoing collaboration.
Summary
The guide provides a thorough review of the considerations and preparatory work that both client and delivery team must go through before signing the contract. It covers how to prepare and tender a large project portfolio and how to assemble a team of companies that can deliver the projects together with the client. The guide emphasizes that establishing a strategic partnership is a major task, but the potential gains make the effort worthwhile.
The guide contains:
- Strategic considerations and decision basis for partnerships
- Preparation and organization of the tender process
- Development of tender documents and evaluation criteria
- Risk management and distribution between parties
- Contract models and payment structures
- Tools for team composition and selection
- Templates and examples from actual partnerships
Facts about this guide
The guide was developed by Værdibyg and REBUS with support from Realdania.
Who is the guide aimed at?
The guide is primarily aimed at clients considering strategic partnerships and their advisors who assist with preparation and implementation. The guide is also relevant for companies that wish to participate as part of a delivery team, as it provides insight into the client’s perspective and considerations. Additionally, the guide is useful for lawyers, consultants and others working with partnership agreements.
What you get from the guide
By using this guide, you gain a solid foundation for deciding whether strategic partnerships are right for your organization. You get concrete tools for preparing and implementing a tender process, including templates for tender documents and contracts. The guide helps you understand the critical success factors and avoid common pitfalls when establishing partnerships.
Background
The construction industry faces major challenges with budget overruns, conflicts and varying quality. Traditional project-by-project tendering often leads to suboptimization, where learning and relationships are lost between projects. Strategic partnerships represent a paradigm shift where long-term collaboration, repetition in projects and processes, and shared development create value for all parties. This requires all involved parties to have the will, robustness and competencies to engage in trust-based relationships and develop joint business models and processes.
Expert group and Editorial office
This guide has been prepared and published by the industry initiative Værdibyg and the social partnership REBUS with support from Realdania.
The preparation of this publication has included the active involvement of the following expert group:
The Danish Association of Construction Clients: Nina Skjøt-Pedersen (Byggeri København), Rikke Gunnestrup (Byggeri København), Carsten Bjørlund (co2con Bygherrerådgivning), Birgitte Dyrvig Carlsson (DyrvigConsult ApS), Bettina Birch (Egedal Kommune), Helene Bjergelund (fsb), Hans Blinkilde (Region H – Center for Ejendomme), Søren Hansen (Aros Advice Bygherrerådgivning)
The Danish Construction Association: Søren Jensen (Pihl & Søn), Kim Thinggaard (TRUST and &os construction partnership), Anders Sørensen (TRUST and &os construction partnership), Peter Bonde Rasmussen (Hoffmann A/S), Chris Arendrup (Juul & Nielsen A/S)
Danish Association of Architectural Firms: Flemming Andersen (Flemming Andersen Arkitekter A/S), Anders Holst Jensen (JJW ARKITEKTER), David Ploug (JJW ARKITEKTER), Anne Wewer (KANT arkitekter), Uffe Bay-Schmidt (KANT arkitekter)
Danish Association of Consulting Engineers: Morten Dam Hansen (COWI), Søren Pedersen (COWI), Lars Dilling Michael (Dominia/ TRUST), Nikolaj Snog (Niras)
TEKNIQ Arbejdsgiverne: Nicolai Wylich (Kemp & Lauritzen)
Observers: Peter Hedegård (Saint-Gobain Denmark A/S), Simone Kongsbak (Smith Innovation), Nicolaj Frederiksen (Industrial PhD student, Enemærke & Petersen A/S)
REBUS: Per Anker Jensen, Jakob Brinkø Berg, Christian Thuesen
Værdibyg: Mette Skouenborg, Morten Skaarup Jensen, Rolf Simonsen
Writer: Per Anker Jensen, DTU/REBUS
Editorial office: Værdibyg
