Early Contractor Involvement: Building better partnerships, smarter projects

For many years, the construction industry has followed a linear path: first tendering, then execution. Each phase has its own team, priorities and deliverables. While this structure ensures accountability and commercial rigour, it also assumes that project scopes can be defined in absolute detail before the work begins.

Experience and extensive research, including How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, shows that this assumption rarely holds true for complex or large-scale projects. Whether the project is highly complex, time-critical, budget-sensitive or quality-driven, a traditional tender approach often leaves little room for collaboration or flexibility when it is most needed. The result is delays, unexpected costs and, for clients, fragmented communication across project phases. At BESIX, we see an opportunity to change that dynamic.

In a traditional process, the contractor’s detailed involvement begins only once the design is largely fixed and the tender awarded. Moreover, the much-needed alignment between the client, designers, general contractor and sometimes key subcontractors is not built into the process.

ECI replaces this sequence with a collaborative, data-driven approach in which commercial, design and construction specialists work alongside the client’s team from the earliest stages.

For the client, this integration brings immediate advantages. Early access to a contractor’s and subcontractors’ expertise enables smarter design decisions, optimised cost planning and better management of construction and project risks. Challenges that typically emerge during execution, such as unforeseen site conditions or scope gaps, can be addressed dynamically during the design phase, where they are faster and less costly to resolve.

The ECI model also transforms the timing of a project. Instead of a short, high-pressure tender followed by a restart at execution, ECI establishes a longer, more dynamic and collaborative pre-construction period. During this ‘go-slow-to-go-fast’ phase, BESIX’s commercial and operational teams work closely with the client to test design options, refine budgets, validate schedules and secure the supply chain.

For clients, this means that when execution begins, the project is already de-risked and fully informed by real-world construction data. Costs are more reliable, methodologies are tested, and potential risks have been mitigated or shared transparently. In other words, ECI shifts uncertainty out of the delivery phase and into the planning phase, where it can be managed with confidence.

For specific projects, particularly in public infrastructure or technically demanding environments, this approach accelerates decision-making and leads to fewer surprises, fewer unforeseen circumstances and stronger partnerships throughout delivery.

Early Contractor Involvement is not only suited to complex projects. It is equally valuable when clients need speed without compromise, budget predictability, or access to a trusted, high-quality supply chain to achieve exceptional results.