Through-Life Value Creation: Organising for Service-Led Construction Projects

Major construction clients are increasingly looking to procure built facilities on the basis of added value, rather than capital cost. Growing emphasis is given to whole-life considerations and to the service dimensions of projects. Supporting arguments embrace design, production and facilities management and emphasise the need for the construction sector to shift its attention away from product delivery towards the satisfaction of client needs. These changes in procurement strategy have consequences that go beyond merely adding additional services to traditional construction work. The resulting projects are perhaps best conceptualised as being ‘service-led’ and driven by a localised vision of downstream service delivery based on the client’s strategy and objectives for a new or enhanced service to its own customers. This increases the number of stakeholders and adds a new realm of project complexity that challenges deeply-ingrained working practices.

The challenge

The long-term nature of the service delivery requirements combined with the added risks associated with the extended timeframes and future business environments place new demands on clients and suppliers alike. This raises the question of how client organisations, firms and project organisations best organise to accommodate the added emphasis on service. Two key issues can be singled out. The first is how construction firms manage and protect the expertise and working relationships that support their excellence in specialised niches and secure their positions in more traditional markets, while realising their remit in service-led projects. The second is the extent to which organisational and structural changes are met by equivalent changes within client, and other relevant, organisations. The research aim is to explore the tensions which participation in service-led projects pose for the involved parties and establish the different ways in which these can be managed at intra- and inter-organisational levels. Four objectives are set for the research, which are to:

i)     Study the place that service-led projects have in the larger portfolio of activities of different internal stakeholders.