Portfolio developers, those running multiple concurrent housing schemes across a region, occupy a specific position in the construction supply chain. Their commercial value to specialist contractors is greater than any single scheme. Their operational complexity is greater than any single scheme’s contract manager can fully absorb. The relationships that serve them best sit at director level rather than at contract manager level.
The distinction matters practically. A contract manager on the specialist contractor’s side is focused on the specific scheme in front of them, the current programme, the current commercial position, the current issues raised. That focus is right for the individual scheme but limited when the developer needs the specialist’s help across the portfolio.
A director-level relationship, by contrast, sits above any individual scheme. Portfolio commitments can be made. Resource allocations across the portfolio can be discussed. Programme adjustments across concurrent schemes can be traded. Strategic decisions about specification, pricing and delivery approach can be made at the level appropriate to a multi-scheme relationship.
The Globe Group’s account structure for portfolio developer clients puts director-level authority into the relationship as a matter of course. The developer’s commercial director or programme director interacts with a named director on the group’s side rather than with a contract manager who then has to escalate anything material.
That structure changes several practical things. Cost plan discussions across concurrent schemes happen at the level where decisions can actually be made. Resource conflicts between two of the developer’s schemes calling on the same specialist crew can be resolved with authority. Framework rate reviews can be concluded rather than referred upward. Programme trade-offs, moving a crew from one site to another to meet a plot release date, can be authorised in one conversation.
For the developer, the compression of decision cycles is meaningful. A portfolio developer who has to wait for multiple layers of escalation on the specialist’s side to decide simple commercial questions accumulates decision friction across the portfolio. The friction shows up as slowed programmes, deferred commercial closures, and slower response to opportunities.
There is also a strategic dimension. Director-level relationships develop over multiple schemes into a substantive working knowledge of the developer’s programme, their preferences, their risk tolerance and their portfolio economics. That knowledge is a real asset. A specialist contractor who has thought through the developer’s business model is a specialist contractor whose proposals fit that business model. The alternative is proposals that look reasonable in isolation but do not fit the developer’s actual situation.
For portfolio developers, the practical question at framework tender stage is not just about the specialist’s technical capability and rates. It is about who on the specialist’s side will actually be in the relationship, at what level of authority, and whether that arrangement will hold across the framework period. Where the answer is director-level and stable, the relationship works. Where it is contract manager only, the developer will be doing more coordination work than the framework arrangement should require.
The Globe Group’s operating model treats portfolio developer relationships as director-owned rather than manager-owned. That means the director carries responsibility for delivery quality across the portfolio, not just for signing the framework at the outset.
For developers considering framework consolidation, director-level accessibility is one of the clearer signals of whether a specialist supplier is set up to actually serve a portfolio relationship or is set up to serve individual scheme relationships and hope the framework holds together at the summary level.
Talk to the Globe Group To discuss director-level account arrangements across your portfolio on your scheme, contact the Globe Group on 01223 890727 or email enquiries@theglobegroup.co.uk.
