Opinion

Balfour Beatty: a winning culture that struggled to adapt

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  1. The commentator says “…you have to be excellent at collaboration. But this runs in the opposite direction of Balfour Beatty’s core strength of independent-minded thinking and empowerment”.

    Nail on head. To run the whole project in the best interest of the client, I believe an integrated team that collaborates is crucial. This is key to the fabled “win-win”, where the client gets a brilliant and low-cost job and the supply-chain make money. This is not cloud-cuckoo, its possible. However, so long as there exists an industry (not just BB) belief that it is each player for themselves, and target contract managers with making a profit in whatever way they want, then we will continue to lag behind other industries in efficiency and productivity.

    BB was one of the first companies in the world to use one of the most successful developments in project management in the last 50 years (CCPM). [Ed Critical Chain Project Management]. Despite great success its use petered out as contract managers decided to do things their way, and directors either didn’t understand the potential or were too scared to enforce its use more widely. The method has proven success in almost all sectors globally..other than ours.

    Maybe the problems BB are suffering with a symptomatic of the industry, not just localised problems?

  2. Too many office based personnel based on site not knowing what is going on on site

  3. Having been a part of both the Mansell and Balfour Beatty companies during the last 7 or so years, I have had first hand experience of the good and bad of these two companies. In my view Mansell was streets ahead of Balfour’s in processes, procedures and management. With the recent governance of Balfour being imposed on them in the last few years, so Mansell has been dragged down into poor processes and the good management of Mansell has been replaced by the lesser Balfour management. No empowerment existed in my management role, but rather we were overly controlled from above being prevented from carrying out our jobs to the extent and capability that we considered was appropriate. It was do the job with at least one if not two hands tied behind your back.

  4. The senior management do not have any experience of running building sites. There are no builders at senior levels. It is sad to see the demise of such a good company.

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