13/04/2023 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering, Budget, Business Development, Business Transformation, Cost Control, Project Cost Controls

Change Orders: Where It Can Be a Gateway to Construction Fraud and Misconduct

Agenda Contents Introduction. 2 Understanding the scope of works. 2 The Fraud Scenarios in Change Orders. 3 Conclusion. 5 Introduction Fraud and misconduct in construction have become a pervasive problem globally, with up to $5 trillion expected to be lost to corruption by 2030. One of the areas where these illicit activities often occur is during the change order process, where individuals on the client side collude with contractors to engage in fraudulent practices. The aim of this article […]

29/06/2018 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

Can We Increase The Bidding Price Now?

Global oil prices hit 11-year low on Jan 2016 with around $30 per barrel dropping form $115 on June 2014. Last month May 2018, it rose to $80 per barrel for the first time since 2014. The year to date average price for Brent oil is close to $70 per barrel. Historically, over the duration of 2002 to 2008, the price of oil rose from $20 to $100+ which helped the construction industry to boom to historical record. Consequently, can […]

03/04/2018 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

Are You Burning Your Cash Flow?

Project Based Organizations (PBO) are struggling when market is slow on two stages. The first is what to bid stage and the later is the bidding’s markup price stage. They feel the pressure more on the later especially if they lost many bids recently and they feel like the year is finishing by burning the overhead cash flow with no results. The mark up price includes the hard cost, the soft cost and the profit. Hard cost is the estimated […]

12/03/2018 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

Project Cash Flow Forecast, How Much Details You Need During Bidding?

In this article I will discuss the contractors cash flow worst case scenario and how much big risk they have to manage to have a positive cash flow. Some of the figures might give you a shock. The numbers are logical based on the provided works progress percentage. Construction preliminaries are from 10% to 15% globally in most countries according to International construction market survey 2017 published by Turner & Townsend which includes 43 markets around the world. The average […]

17/10/2016 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

Earthwork Tender’s Schedule – What Level of Details You Should Include in it?

The planning and scheduling of earthwork are of major importance in obtaining an efficiently bidding pricing for multibillion construction projects. To plan a schedule, the quantities of clearing, grubbing, and stripping, as well as the quantities and balancing of cuts and fills, must be calculated. Then, the most efficient type and number of pieces of earth moving equipment could be defined, the proper number of personnel assigned, and the appropriate time allocated. Earthwork computation involves the calculation of volumes or […]

04/10/2016 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

Bidding Portfolio Process Map Framework – Decision Making Analysis

Abstract: There are difficulties to collect actual bidding cost from the different contractors records. Many contractors consider it part of the overhead and not important to calculate. Part of this difficulties is the unidentified or different bidding process methods and where the process starts and where it end? Therefore, identification of the bidding process, will help to identify its actual cost. We will discuss here only the contractors bidding process. Although, there are similarities for consultants and suppliers process with less cost expected. […]

31/08/2016 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

How To Turn Challenges Into Opportunity?

Market is always changing. Within these changes, your decision quality is based on three factors; your collected data, your data analysis system and of course the minds who operate them. In construction industry, the challenge of changing market becomes more complex due the huge investment the contractors are doing. This challenge is smaller in engineering firms comparing to contractors. However, having a sustainable business is crucial for both. Here it comes the d2b complexity the consultant and contractors face every day. […]

31/08/2016 Ziad Albasir Bidding & Tendering

How to Encounter Client Lowest Bidding Strategy for Similar Projects?

In bidding and tendering, we have mainly three types of pricing; actual cost, risk-averse cost and mark up price. This article is not discussing the mark up price which is the difference between the cost of a good or services and its selling price. It is discussing the pressure to reduce the total bid price to win the bid. This pressure usually comes from not winning new work after certain time. One unique situation is when the client is having a good strategy to […]