For Owners and Developers

Lawbrook is acutely aware of the risks and pressures associated with planning and delivering major projects.
We support you in the study, setup and execution of projects in commercial areas such as procurement, contract administration, project delivery strategy, project management and change management. Our detailed service offering is below.

Service Offering

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Setup of Global Capital Procurement and Contracts Function

For major project organisations, huge value can be obtained by ensuring every project procures and manages contracts consistently. Benefits include;
  • Ability for personnel to move between projects
  • Ensuring a standardised outcome for procurement and contracting activity
  • Simplicity for the customers of procurement and contracting services
  • Opportunities for economies of scale are more easily identified
  • Reduced time to train new team members
  • Ability to quickly replicate best practice outcomes
  • Learning opportunities can be quickly and easily incorporated into standard practice
Lawbrook is experienced in rationalising project procedures and developing a single global process/procedure. This process is often significant in nature given the requirements of certain jurisdictions globally. Given this typically results in a significant change program, Lawbrook has supported numerous end-to-end change programmes.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“All of my projects use different procedures to manage procurement and contracts and I think we are losing the opportunity to combine spend.”
“Project start-up is taking too long as every new project gets new procedures.”

Individual Project Procurement and Contracts Processes

Setting up a capital procurement and contracts function on an individual project can be a lot of work. Procedures and forms are required, contract templates need to be built and resources have to be recruited and trained.
Lawbrook consultants have helped clients develop all necessary procedures, processes, templates and forms (aligned to the head contract or other organisational procedures), key position descriptions and have supported recruitment and on-boarding of personnel.
You may need support if this statement reflects your organisation:
“I am about to start a major project and will need to develop processes to manage my procurement and contracting activity. I will also need to form a team and have them trained in these new processes."

Capital Procurement Strategy

Efficient procurement of goods and services is a critical activity to drive cost reduction and efficient capital allocation. It is also critical that you establish whether all capital procurement and contracting activity will be done in-house, or using the support of a managing contractor (i.e. EPCM contractor).
Lawbrook consultants have supported numerous clients in the development of procurement and contracting strategies and associated tender packaging (including leveraging from low cost supplier locations).



You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“I’m not sure how we should package up our capital spend for next year.”
“Most of our supply items are from Australia – couldn’t we buy cheaper from low cost countries?”
“Do we have the skills to do all of the procurement ourselves, or do we need help from an EPCM?”
“I don’t know the best way to split up my project spend to balance cost-saving and the risk of putting all of my eggs in one basket.”

Tender Management and Scoping

Understanding how and what you need to procure is a major driver in optimising capital and managing scope creep.
Lawbrook can help you by developing tender processes tailored to your organisation and training your team members in those processes. We can also support the development of scope documents for major packages which will provide the best chance that all costs are foreseen and supplier variations are reduced.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“I don’t know exactly what I need to buy yet, but I know that the work needs to start.”
“Is our EPCM really acting in our best interest and buying as cheaply as they could be?”
"Our contracts usually have a lot of variations from items left out of the scope."

Planning and Executing Negotiations

Successful negotiations are usually the result of a well-developed and executed negotiation plan.
Lawbrook consultants have planned and executed successful negotiations worth hundreds of millions in value. Through this planning process, Lawbrook provides advice on options, approaches and templates.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
"We usually just pay what the supplier quotes.”
“We have a major negotiation coming up, but don’t have a negotiation plan.”
“We don't have a lot of time but we'd like to get a better deal.”

Developing High Quality Capital Expenditure Recommendations

Running a robust tender process and negotiating hard is a good start, but the last piece of the puzzle is convincing the organisation to part with a significant amount of capital.
Lawbrook uses 15+ years of experience in this area to help your organisation develop robust, convincing capital expenditure recommendations which are succinct and capture the key outcomes of the procurement process.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“It is always so hard to convince people to approve a recommendation.”
“It normally takes us 5 revisions to obtain spend approval.”

Contract Management

After value has been obtained through strategy, tendering and negotiation, it is important to retain this value and not allow leakage through the contract administration process.
Lawbrook provides support to setup and train team members in robust contract administration processes and support the management of large and complex supplier, contractor or service provider claims, even if in dispute.
Lawbrook has experience in the relevant laws of the Australian states and in many other major jurisdictions of the world.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
"How are we going to respond to this claim in such a short timeframe?”
"I want to pay the supplier what they are entitled to, but not a cent more.”
“This is a very complex claim and I don’t know how to work out what the contractor is owed”.

Procurement and Contracts Compliance and Governance, including Training and Audit

The best processes are not effective if the teams delivering the work are not compliant. Lawbrook recommends a two-phase approach to ensuring compliance with processes and procedures.
  • Proactive – Lawbrook facilitates detailed training sessions in your organisation’s procurement and contracts processes, ideally at the commencement of a project or programme of work
  • Responsive – Lawbrook supports the scoping and conduct of procedural audits to ensure high levels of process adoption. These audits result in a detailed compliance report with improvement recommendations and associated implementation plan
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“I don’t think our team members (or our EPCM) are following our mandated procedures.”
“I want to set this project up correctly and make sure everyone is competent before we start work.”
“Are my team all doing the right thing? I am not sure what integrity and ethics risks I might have on my project.”

Project Management

Many organisations fail to identify key requirements in order to manage projects, including change projects, correctly. Projects are often commenced and significant funds are spent before issues arise which critically impact the objectives of the project.
Lawbrook supports the development of project plans and brings project management tools and processes (including stakeholder management, project schedules, mapping of value drivers and information centres) in order to promote visibility of project deliverables and keep your projects on track.
You may need support if these statements reflect your organisation:
“I am kicking off a large project and I’m not sure how to set it up for success.”
“I feel like my project is going off track but I don’t have any metrics to show this.”