NEC Contracts has published Trust, Contracts and Outcomes: A Global Study of Construction Supply Chain Relationships, a major piece of exclusive research exploring the factors shaping supply chain relationships across the built environment. Drawing on the views of more than 1,000 industry professionals in the UK, Australia, Peru, Singapore and Hong Kong, the report provides a detailed picture of current attitudes to trust, collaboration and contracting, and the gap between where the industry stands and where professionals believe it needs to be.
The State of the Industry
The research paints a clear picture of an industry under significant commercial pressure globally, though Singapore’s project delivery performance stands out. 64 percent of Singapore respondents said more than half of their projects in the last three years were delivered on time and to budget, the highest figure of any market surveyed and a notable indicator of what consistent client-driven collaborative procurement can help achieve.
In Singapore, uncontrolled scope changes (42 percent), poor estimating (42 percent), inflationary pressures (37 percent) and late payment culture (36 percent) were identified as the biggest causes of business instability, financial stress and disputes.
Adversarial dynamics remain a recognised feature of the industry. 61 percent of Singapore professionals agreed that built environment projects create inherently adversarial supply chains, with just 10 percent disagreeing. 78 percent agreed that poor supply chain relationships risk business continuity, signalling the importance of structural improvements to strengthen trust and collaboration across teams.
Trust and Collaboration: Widely Valued, Inconsistently Practised
Despite these challenges, the research reveals strong and consistent belief in the value of collaboration. 81 percent of respondents agreed that trust between parties is critical to successful project outcomes, while 80 percent agreed that higher levels of collaboration help issues to be resolved more quickly.
When asked what factors are most important in minimising disputes, effective communication (47 percent), clear boundaries and processes agreed from the start (44 percent) and positive supply chain relationships built on trust and cooperation (40 percent) emerged as the top responses in Singapore.
A Significant Knowledge and Adoption Gap
One of the most important findings of the report is the scale of the gap between positive attitudes toward collaborative contracting and actual adoption. While 75 percent felt positive about more widespread adoption of collaborative contracts, most professionals (67 percent) still operate within traditional contracting frameworks.
Among those familiar with collaborative contracts, the perceived benefits are clear and commercially significant. Industry professionals say that collaborative contracting helps protect their business (77 percent), improves delivery timescales (77 percent), reduces legal disputes (72 percent) and improves profitability (70 percent).
Yet awareness and experience remain uneven. In Singapore, 14 percent of respondents had never heard of collaborative contracts, and only one third (34 percent) had worked on projects using them. The predominance of traditional contract forms is driven overwhelmingly by client specification, pointing to the critical role client organisations must play in accelerating change.
Renee Paik, Head of Asia Pacific at NEC Contracts, said: Across the Asia Pacific markets in this research, there is genuine enthusiasm for collaborative contracting – and in markets like Singapore, we are seeing strong momentum of interest translating to a growing number of pilot projects that are planning to launch the next couple of years.
The global picture in this research is ultimately an optimistic one. In every market, the industry understands the value of collaboration. In every market, people working within collaborative contracts report better outcomes. The variation we see between markets is not about different values – it is about different levels of exposure and enablement. Where clients lead, the industry follows. That is both the challenge and the opportunity.”
