Repeat business in construction is rarely about price. Developers and principal contractors do not return to a contractor because they came in cheapest on the last scheme. They return because the contractor delivered, documented, and handed over without creating problems for the wider programme. On the next scheme, the developer wants the same outcome with less management overhead.
That principle drives a significant proportion of the Globe Group’s work. Major housebuilders including Taylor Wimpey, Vistry, Morgan Sindall, Stonemond and TCL appoint Globe divisions on successive schemes — often across different regions and different package combinations. Understanding why is useful for any developer evaluating long-term contractor relationships.
Programme certainty becomes predictable
On a first scheme together, a developer is testing whether a contractor can hit dates. By the third scheme, the developer knows. The Globe Group’s recorded performance — including a 97% on-time delivery rate across recent schemes — gives commercial directors and programme managers a basis for forecasting that they cannot get from a contractor they have not worked with before.
That predictability has a measurable commercial value. Plot release dates can be set with confidence. Sales programmes can be aligned with reasonable certainty. Marketing suites and show home openings can be planned without padding the dates with contingency. None of this is possible until a developer has enough delivery history with a contractor to know what their actual performance looks like, not what their tender claimed.
The administrative load drops on each subsequent scheme
Every new contractor relationship comes with a learning curve. Procedures need to be aligned. Reporting formats need to be agreed. Site induction processes, document control protocols, and handover requirements all need to be communicated and bedded in. By scheme two or three, all of this is already in place. The developer’s site team and the Globe Group divisions involved already know how each other works.
This shows up most clearly in pre-construction planning. A second-scheme appointment can move from contract award to mobilisation considerably faster than a first-scheme appointment, because the procurement team is not reviewing accreditations from scratch and the site team is not building working relationships from zero. For developers running concurrent schemes across multiple regions, that efficiency is significant.
Multi-package coordination improves with familiarity
The Globe Group’s project lifecycle sequence — GCE for groundworks, Globe Cambridge for scaffolding, Globe Roofing for the roof, Red Safety Netting for fall protection — is most efficient when the divisions have worked together repeatedly under the same principal contractor. Each scheme tightens the interfaces between packages. Sequencing becomes more predictable. Handovers between trades become cleaner. The principal contractor spends less time managing the boundaries between packages because the divisions have already worked out how to manage them.
By the time a developer is on their second or third scheme with the group, the coordination overhead is materially lower than it would be with four separate contractors who happen to be on site together for the first time.
Documentation and quality systems carry over
Group-wide ISO 9001 certification, combined with shared accreditations including CHAS Premium Plus, Constructionline, NASC, FASET, and FORS, means the documentation produced on one scheme is structured the same way as the documentation produced on the next. Developers with established document control systems benefit directly: the records they receive from the Globe Group fit the templates they have already built. No remapping is needed.
This is a small operational benefit on any individual scheme. Across a portfolio of schemes running over several years, it becomes a meaningful saving in commercial and quality management time.
The 449,280 accident-free hours figure matters in repeat appointments
The Globe Group’s recorded 449,280 accident-free hours is significant on a first appointment because it gives a procurement team confidence in the safety record. On repeat appointments, it matters for a different reason. A principal contractor’s CDM 2015 obligations include the duty to appoint contractors with the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience. Demonstrating that a contractor has continued to deliver safely over consecutive schemes is part of how that duty is discharged. Repeat appointments to a contractor with a demonstrable safety record support the principal contractor’s compliance position, not just the operational outcome.
Talk to the Globe Group about your next scheme
To discuss how the Globe Group can support your next development, contact us on 01223 890727 or email enquiries@theglobegroup.co.uk.
