The Role of the Client

The aim of this chapter was to investigate procurement systems from a client perspective to put IPD in context. We did so by taking the reader back to review the evolution of project procurement and delivery over a period of more than 50 years, from several influential government and research organisation’s reports. We also discussed, to set the context of this chapter’s seminal research work from the 1970s onwards. We also drew upon recent research and literature to frame the client’s needs and capabilities and to explore the future through current developments that indicate the way that many projects will proceed in the 2020s and beyond. Clearly, clients need to be more sophisticated, develop dynamic capabilities and absorptive capacity for effective knowledge and innovation use and to take advantage of the digital economy, as will be discussed in Chapter 16. IPD, with its intense levels of collaboration and team specialist integration, is ideal for the type of advanced problem framing, re-framing and solving that is required to deliver sustainable and value adding outcomes. As discussed in Chapter 4, this helps to identify and strategise value creation and, as discussed comprehensively in Chapter 8, this needs to be designed-in to the process to be effective.