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The best of the specialist contractors are having to make a choice. Who are they going to work for? The growth of supply chains, preferred suppliers, frameworks, whatever you want to call them means that the major contractors are looking to work with fewer specialists. And some specialists will be on several 'special' lists.

"As an organisation we are very conscious we are competing with our peers for quality supply chain resource," says Taylor Woodrow procurement director Gerald Slack.

Taylor Woodrow has cut its list for the top 20 trades from 4,000 to 250 over the last three to four years. Mace's list is shorter at 157. Bovis Lend Lease has just 54 preferred bidders – for nine key trades – and a database of 6,000 suppliers. Clients such as BAA, Safeway and Asda are also seen as leading the way with fewer, stronger relationships with suppliers

Preferred supplier relationships, where specialists are involved early, make for a more efficient, better-resourced job for both parties. There are further benefits, says Clive Loosemore, project director on Costain Taylor Woodrow's Kings Cross St Pancras job.

And when Bailey Rail, part of Taywood's strategic alliance partners, comes to work on the job it will be supervising itself. Now that's trust for you.

But what do the specialists look for when they are deciding who to work for? Or where to send their best people? Three firms (see box), all of whom are on Taywood's supply chain list, told us what they would look for in a partner...

CHEMISTRY
"I am a big believer that it's down to relationships between people," says Martin Bailey of NG Bailey. "People like me can create an environment for our business but you have still got to have the relationship at a branch and local level and at a project level."

"We want to work with organisations that have exactly the same kind of outlook as us," says Peter Emerson, director and MD of Watson Steel, part of Severfield Rowan. "Companies that are open, innovative, sharing ideas, identifying opportunities and working alongside each other to realise them."

OPEN-MINDED
In some cases, different teams from different parts of Severfield have been working with two or more contractors on the same bid. Both Emerson and Bailey say that the most important thing is to tell the truth about it from the very beginning. And while a relatively small firm like Scanmoor likes to spread its preferred supplier commitments to avoid clashes, this is not possible for big players like Severfield Rowen and NG Bailey, so any potential suitor needs to realise that jealousy will get them nowhere.

Sometimes though, for example on PFI bids, a specialist has to assess what it sees are the strengths and merits of the various bids. "It's a judgement you cannot always get right," says Emerson.

ON THE LEVEL
Some major contractors mistreat their preferred suppliers. Emerson cites occasions when contractors have invited a Severfield team for a day's brain-picking before throwing open the bid to a host of other firms. "We try and suss people like that out and would not necessarily want to create a relationship with people who are operating like that."

  "Other companies are being driven into it because their employers are requesting them to have supply lists," says Moore. In these situations, having the name of certain specialists there in black and white is a marketing benefit.

MONOGAMOUS
Check out how many others are on the scene, recommends Emerson. "If there are 12 other steel structures suppliers, you have to ask yourself what the value of that is to you."

One-on-one tenders, says Moore, eliminate the chance of winning a bad job, because rather than devoting a limited time to making a competitive bid, you can concentrate on the demands of the job and properly assess risk.

ER... RICH
Major contractors with a poor payment record will be paying in the future. "We look at how they have traded in the past," says Bailey.

And discerning specialists will be taking a close look at the balance sheets and credit-ratings of potential partners.

  "They never underprice work," says Moore about Taylor Woodrow. "They are a well-geared company, as against those major contractors where you look at the gearing and they are buying work."

TAKES PRECAUTIONS
Being associated with a major contractor without rigorous safety procedures is bad for business and potentially bad for the board. "In the next five years people are going to jail," says Moore. "All the good companies will have to employ high calibre safety systems, and those companies who put those systems in place cannot do so overnight.

"You cannot afford to be doing high-profile major jobs and killing people. On projects like football stadia and city jobs, the reporters are already asking 'How's the job going? Have you killed anybody yet?'."