The cheapest quote is not always the cheapest project
When commercial refurbishment quotations are compared, it is easy to focus on the total at the bottom of the page. But the real cost of a project is the combination of the contractor’s price, the level of risk carried by the client and the amount of internal time needed to get the job over the line.
A low quotation can still become an expensive project if important items were missed during the survey, assumptions were not made clear or the contractor needs significantly more management than expected.
Facilities management time is a real project cost
A Facilities Manager can quickly become the unofficial project manager when a contractor has not taken enough ownership. That can mean more meetings, more site visits, more chasing, more internal explanations and more time coordinating trades that should already have been coordinated.
- Chasing incomplete works and snagging after practical completion.
- Coordinating separate trades because nobody is taking overall responsibility.
- Raising additional purchase orders for items that should have been identified earlier.
- Explaining unexpected cost increases internally after budgets have already been approved.
- Managing disruption when the programme begins to slip.
What a stronger quotation should give you
A good commercial fit-out quotation should make the scope, exclusions, assumptions and likely risks clear before works start. It should reflect what was found during the survey rather than relying on a long list of unknowns.
It should also show that the contractor understands access, phasing, protection, waste, welfare, procurement, sequencing and handover.
Our approach
Creation Office focuses on properly scoping projects before mobilisation so the delivery team has a realistic programme and a coordinated scope to work from.
We are not trying to be the cheapest number on every comparison. The aim is to provide a realistic route from survey to handover with fewer surprises in the middle.