°µÍø½ûÇø

The term risk management has been associated with the construction industry for almost as long as bricks have been stacked to form a wall and cement has been used to hold them together. Put simply, risk – and the successful management of it – is essential for any project to get built, whether it is a simple TI fit-out or a massive multi-year monster of a job.

While the presence of risk is nothing new, how we manage it has changed dramatically. And these days, accounting for risk takes many forms and occurs earlier than ever before. But no matter how evolved a company’s risk strategy is, it ultimately comes down to the people and partners who implement it.

It’s no longer good enough to simply be a great builder. In today’s construction industry, the firms that account for risk early and often in every step of the process, from preconstruction to workforce management to sustainability, will time and again deliver projects that avoid the pitfalls of poor execution and overreliance on antiquated ways of project delivery.

Integrating Risk Mitigation at Every Level

First, it’s important to understand how risk management begins long before the first shovel hits the ground. Domestic trade policy has introduced a level of volatility in construction materials and labor pricing that makes it essential to plan for the ups and downs of working within a global economy. In addition, labor shortages, increasingly stringent environmental metrics, and more cautious underwriting demands that project teams account for all manners of risk concerns early in the construction process.

If you see a project go unfinished or worse, never start, consider that it’s not because there wasn’t sufficient demand or financing dried up. Perhaps it’s because the project team didn’t account for the concerns outlined above. Sadly, this still happens every day and is likely completely avoidable.

While many firms have integrated preconstruction services into their approach to building, mapping out plumbing and accounting for potential site concerns isn’t enough to avoid the issues described above. Pre-con is effectively the cost of entry these days, and firms that bring risk management to the next level will be the ones to secure repeat business from a growing list of customers. Robust pre-con services will certainly account for risks involved in the assembly of a building, but at °µÍø½ûÇø, we’ve taken it to the next level. This includes:

1. Aligning scope, budget, and schedule before procurement begins;
2. Structuring contracts and insurance to protect all parties before a shovel hits the ground;
3. Utilization of a best-in-class prequalification program to verify trade partner capability, capacity and quality;
4. Pressure-testing assumptions around materials, labor, and logistics to ensure we have the best and most recent data;
5. Utilizing a merit-based approach to labor to provide our clients with the greatest selection of talent to choose from, and the freedom to align cost and schedule strategies; and
6. Integrating AI tools to assess the items above and provide an up-to-the-second reality check on the health of a project in its formative stages.

And as the builder behind the first commercial-use Passive House certification in the Northeast, we’ve been actively utilizing advanced materials and systems for years that help our clients future-proof themselves against evolving regulatory requirements – just one more way our approach to risk mitigation pays dividends for our project partners.

A Mindset that Every Employee Embraces

At °µÍø½ûÇø, we’ve been fortunate to build a team that understands and implements this approach daily. One of the most prized proof points we have is our ratio of repeat customers – which, in and of itself, helps insulate all our clients, new and old, from unnecessary risk. By working with partners who maintain robust risk management protocols within their own organizations, we ensure our entire team has an extra buffer of stability in place. That doesn’t happen without deep pre-con and cost intelligence tools, in-house technical expertise, early trade partner alignment, and integrated risk management protocols. De-risking construction is not achieved through a policy, or a key hire (although, both of those are necessary): it is a mindset. It is a culture that understands why we do things differently, and it permeates every level of our organization.