Construction companies can use international construction consultants to access international best practice skills to win contracts for major local and international projects and manage commercial risks, says UK-based global construction consultancy Systech International CEO Stephen Rayment.

Construction consultancies provide international best practice skills for the commercial management of projects and provide the know-how to navigate complex contracts and reduce risks in the event of claims and dispute resolution, says Systech International director Richard Fredrick.

“These skills can be accessed on an ad hoc basis to complement skills in a company, on a temporary basis for specific projects or parts of projects, or long-term on a partnership basis, where staff are trained and skills transferred from within these consultancies to the construction companies,” he explains.

“The nature of construction pro- jects worldwide is more contractual and more stringent than those of the past. “The scope of skills required has been recognised in the domes- tic market because local project requirements have been informed by international best practice,” adds Rayment.

Systech also has an exchange programme that entails training clients’ staff for a year at its academy, in the UK, to develop the required contract management skills in the organisation, he notes.

There is a shortage of professional planning and contract management skills worldwide and projects often require high visibility of phases and delay management.

“The quality of skills and project visibility, which consultants can provide, are often a deciding factor in winning large-scale construction contracts, owing to years of international experience and the use of technology such as visualisation software that enables clients to view different stages of the project in advance and in relation to other phases of the project.”

Complementing the expertise of construction consultancies is the experience of effectively communicating tender applications to clients using videos and visual representations of the projects, says Fredrick.

These visual representations supplement the large volume of tender documents and improve communication of the proposed project to clients, he notes.

Further, Systech International also has a voice-activated site application software tool that enables site and project managers to use mobile phones to produce reports and photographic evidence of the state of the project, which are captured remotely to enable claims and disputes management and for improved performance and project management.

“Contractors and the construction industry must become smarter at communicating, managing and reporting on projects while supporting claims and disputes management with the necessary evidence to improve performance,” says Fredrick.