Customer investment strategies developed with the benefit of hindsight: Pre-contract award performance and critical success factors for new development projects

Before a contract is awarded, a customer's new project conceptualization and design require investment in resources so that the project can be properly developed. Suppliers over this period also require the time and costs for their investment in tendering for the project. This research investigates these investments and establishes new insights into how a customer's past project investment data could be used to improve resource allocation investment in future projects. Based on a sample of eleven Australian defense projects, new insights into a customer's pre-contract award investments are provided as well as how this information could be used for estimating and allocating investments for future projects. There has been virtually no empirical research of this phenomenon which has the potential to improve project delivery outcomes for both customer and supplier.