Cian BrennanFounder, Quantum Contract Solutions · Founder

Why do contractors fail to follow the contract from day one?

Name: Why do contractors fail to follow the contract from day one?
Uploaded: 2025-12-25T04:00:30+00:00
Duration: 53 s
Channel: Cian Brennan
Description: In this brief talk, the speaker explains why subcontractors often avoid following contract procedures from the start of a project. They prioritize…

25 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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In this brief talk, the speaker explains why subcontractors often avoid following contract procedures from the start of a project. They prioritize informal relationships and delay formal change‑claim submissions to preserve goodwill, but this later creates cash‑flow problems and leads to rejected variation claims because the contract requires timely notification. The speaker quantifies the financial impact, noting that projects can lose 5‑15% of value when contract management practices are ignored, and urges contractors to enforce early, formal compliance and prompt change submissions.

Chapters

Subcontractors skip following the contract on day one because they think, oh, I'll deal with that later. I don't want to appear contractual because that's going to hurt my relationship. But later is exactly when damage does show up. Subcontractors like to rely on relationships early and avoid being too formal, and then they get themselves— we have subcontractors all the time not submit for changes at the start of the project because they're like, no, we'll make it up. We want to have a great relationship. And then ultimately they get to a stage where they're like, oh, we actually have a cash flow issue. And then they try to submit for all of these variations and changes later on and they get rejected because you haven't followed the contract because you're supposed to let them know and submit for the change when it happened. And so by not following the contracts, you're actually doing yourself a disservice and you're losing money on most projects, 5 to 15% to be exact, when you don't follow the contract and have proper contract management practices in place.