But why do projects run over budget and beyond their original deadline? One expert in procurement trends across the world claims to have the answer — the problems could be linked to the resilience of a traditional mindset.

Mohammed Dulaimi, head of the Institute of Engineering at the British University in Dubai, has studied global trends for the past 30 years.

Dulaimi now warns that the UAE’s construction industry is in danger of being hindered by its dependence on dated procurement ideas imported from overseas.

And he believes the region must embrace and develop new methods of procurement in order to build a sustainable construction industry and mitigate risk, as well as start ‘thinking for itself’ if it wants to stay ahead of the competition — particularly with the likes of Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain emerging as viable contenders.

“For many years the region imported ideas, contracts and documents,” he says. “But the UAE is a significant player now, and as well as being a pioneer of magnificent buildings, it should start thinking about bringing in the latest ideas in terms of procurement and letting the world learn from it.”

Dulaimi adds that although the technicalities of procurement processes have evolved, traditional ways of thinking could be what leads to project delays, financial loss, fractured relations among those involved and — more importantly — a product that falls short of what the client actually wanted.

“We have changed details such as how payment is going to be made, who will be responsible for what, and what the penalties and risks are,” he says.

“But these technicalities deal with the old mindset, like the adversarial relationship or the suspicion that someone is going to trick you — so when a problem comes up, the culture of working is not based on trust. And when you try and solve a problem you find that the conditions of contract do not help because they’re not there.”

One of the challenges facing the industry is how to integrate and motivate the supply chain to deliver exactly what the client wants, says Dulaimi, and procurement should be the tool through which the client finds a solution.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people use procurement interchangeably with contracts, so when they say ‘we are using traditional procurement’ they’re actually referring to the documents they sign, but procurement is much more than that,” he said.

“People miss the point that procurement is the strategy through which the client gets a solution. And because of this, they tend to go down the route of looking towards the conditions of contract and different clauses. This leads to disputes. At the moment, procurement seems to be the problem — but it should be the solution as it helps define the relationship between different parties.”