Contractors control revenue tightly. Margin leaks during execution.
· 13 min read
Most contractors control revenue hard. Margin during execution has no equivalent control, only the books, which show what was made after the work is done. With margins this thin, the small leaks on site decide how a project ends.
Watch how a mid-size contractor handles revenue. The tender is priced line by line and reviewed before it goes out. The MD signs off the bid. Once work starts, the bill goes in every month, on schedule.
Then watch what happens to the margin priced into that tender over the next eighteen months of execution. Mostly, nobody watches it until the accounts close. The books tell you what the project made, weeks or months after anything could have been done about it.