Commercial Leakage Turnaround

Situation

A regional M&E contractor running 15–25 live projects had no consistent way of tracking instructions, notices or variations across project teams. Each PM kept their own spreadsheet, and variation evidence was rebuilt from emails when accounts queried it.

Margin drift was being noticed at month-end rather than at the point each decision was made — and by then the evidence trail was fragmented.

Discipline installed

Single instruction log, notice tracker and variation register replacing per-PM spreadsheets. Every line carries an owner, a contractual basis, an evidence pointer and a status.

Monthly commercial rhythm — a 60-minute reviewing meeting with a fixed pack template covering open instructions, recoveries banked, recoveries at risk and notice exposure. The pack assembles from the registers automatically.

90-day shift

Variation recovery improvement of 12–18% in the first 90 days (illustrative — outcome depends on baseline discipline).

Zero missed contractual notices recorded after the workflow stabilised; recoveries-at-risk reviewed weekly rather than discovered late.

Governance gate reinforced

Reinforces the evidence-and-narrative non-negotiable: every recovery line carries a documented evidence pointer and a narrative explaining the contractual basis. Reviewable at audit, board and external dispute.