A Message for Infrastructure Owner Management
“The sooner an initiative or project is safely and competently completed, the sooner it’s operational, serving its purpose and returning our investment.”
As we awkwardly emerge from this pandemic, there is reason for cautious optimism. One positive gleaned from the “Stay at Home” order was the improvisation of getting things done in non-standard and innovative ways.
Having spent decades in conventional contracted professional services to Infrastructure, a few years ago the 4C Solutions Team set out to develop a new delivery method for those same services. We took the strengths of convention, dispensed with its inefficiencies, and built a streamlined approach to contracted Capital Project and O&M support.
Moving forward, owner entities with plans to expand, repair, and maintain their assets, will be compelled to do more, with less. Purpose and capitalization will be scrutinized. The labor market will be tight again. In-House staff will be smaller, but better. Yet, the necessity for Infrastructure improvement will be constant, when not accelerating. And, while there will always be situations calling for conventional EPC-EPCM and traditional consulting support, we now have an invaluable option to add to the Client toolbox.
The 4C Platform is uniquely tailored to Infrastructure Owner Operators, providing direct access to, and engagement with, qualified Independent Senior Professionals and Support Services Companies. We’ve carved the fat out of the equation. More of your organization’s budgeted labor and expense dollars will actually flow to job execution and less to third-party SG&A. Your deployed capital will go farther and last longer while giving you the latitude to competitively compensate those engaged with, and deployed to, your objective. In short, costs go down and the quality of labor goes up. Efficient execution of the goal is the end result.
4C disrupts the usual approach to outside support utilization and the benefits are substantial.
At a glance:
- Resource Consolidation – If your organization presently retains multiple contracted service providers, professionals and craft-persons engaged under multiple MSA’s, this can mean multiple accounts payable, disparate budget and milestone reporting, multiple 1099’s, and, importantly, more silos to navigate, with more budget blowing, schedule elongating, change orders. Engage 4C under a single MSA, assign those resources to our Platform as 4C Sub-Consultants and all of the above disappears. One Invoice, by code. One Labor & Expense Progress Report by Job. One year-end 1099. One Conduit. One Umbrella.
- Resource Facilitation – 4C’s Management knows well the arena in which you fight to win. Once your organization has the objective targeted, its projected budget, scope, and non-labor resources required to be successful in place, engage our Team to assist in filling the winning Roster. We’ll do the heavy lifting, vetting, and candidate recommendations. When your Roster is ratified, see Resource Consolidation.
- Personal Resource Selection – Upon engaging 4C Solutions by MSA, your organization will gain visibility to our existing Roster of Professionals and Support Services Companies, coupled with the ability to insert your own preferred and/or known resources into our Platform as Sub-Consultants. You will have the discretion to personally select and negotiate with these individuals and entities all terms and conditions of their engagement with your organization. This includes location, duration, compensation, and approved expenses. Once you have done that, again, see Resource Consolidation.
- A-la-Cart Resource Selection – We are keenly aware that there exist trusted proven relationships between Client and Contractor/Consultant. 4C’s contribution to your aims may be strictly limited to those functions and/or disciplines for which you presently have no satisfactory answer. The 4C Platform is designed to be the entire solution or merely a component of the solution. For example: Perhaps it’s the retention of an Owner’s Engineer; or, key SME’s; or, a Program Director and related Project PM’s; or, multiple Professional Survey Groups, spanning many areas or regions; then placing them under one banner for the reasons set forth in Resource Consolidation.
“4C’s Commitment:
- 4C is Niche Specific – We provide Professional Support strictly to “Infrastructure” (Power – Communications – Pipeline – Facilities – Utilities – Transportation – Alternative Energy).
- Client Partner – As our Client Partner, you may personally interface and engage with a diverse group of Infrastructure Professionals, Craftsmen, and Support Services Companies, spanning the continent. Each of whom possesses the skill and experience to efficiently meet the multi-dimensional demands of “Infrastructure” design, maintenance, reclamation, and market expansion in a new way, new day and new time.
- Vetting – For the application process, using multiple applicable metrics, 4C Sub-Consulting Professionals and Support Services Companies are carefully vetted by persons who have made their own careers in the Infrastructure support space.
- Visibility – 4C Sub-Consultant Qualifications and Profiles are privately showcased for your consideration and personal contact. You’ll gain access to senior level talent by locale, who may be best suited for, and more familiar with, your specific market and objectives.
- Cost – Zero cost to enjoin 4C by MSA as your Client Partner – No subscription fee; No placement fee; No hidden costs; No hidden liability (We are assuming Supply Chain/Procurement will view the time to register as our Client an investment, not a cost).
- Obligation – No obligation to 4C until such time, if and when, you negotiate a mutually acceptable “Work Order” with our Sub-Consultant(s). Only then are you bound to 4C by the individual Work Order attached to, and made a part of, your newly activated MSA. Whether single or multiple, the limits of obligation are defined within, and confined to, executed Work Order(s).
- Exclusivity to 4C – None. (Other than it pertains to engaged Sub-Consultant(s), with whom you have entered into a formal, mutually approved and ratified, 4C Work Order, which is then attached to, and made a part of, the MSA, for the purposes specifically set forth within the Work Order).
- Sub-Consultant Engagement – You may personally negotiate the rate, expense reimbursement, and all other T’s & C’s with each 4C Sub-Consultant. You also may opt to have our management team do the same on your behalf, subject to your authorization and final retention approval.
- Flexibility – You retain the latitude to engage 4C Sub-Consultants for particular engagements, in certain locations, for estimated durations at your negotiated price until completion. Our Sub-Consultants serve at your pleasure, under your direction and may be released anytime at your election.
- Invoicing – Electronic invoicing to you by 4C twice per month. All Sub-Consultant Invoices are collated by code, with a nominal mark-up by 4C, then transmitted to your organization for processing and their payment. (Please refer to our Platform MSA for the specified mark-up.)
- Labor & Expense Reporting – Real-time tracking of Labor & Expenses against the individual Work Order Budget and collective Work Orders, by Code.
- 1099 Entity – For mutual insulation, protection, and absolute transparency, our Sub-Consultants are “Independent Business Enterprises”. (You will provide 4C a single 1099 for the prior year, no matter the number of 4C jobs supported, or 4C Sub-Consultants, engaged.)
- Insurance – 4C carries General Liability Insurance, as do our Sub-Consultants. Job risk, scope, and role vary. Additional insurance requirements, if any, may be addressed and satisfied within the mutually ratified Work Order.
- MWBE – 4C is a Minority/Woman-Owned Business Enterprise and provides for fair and equal opportunities to qualified merited candidates, without regard to gender, race, religion, creed, or color.
Our Platform is beautifully tailored to an outside support paradigm shift. Innovatively value-adding to Infrastructure Owner Operators, 4C effectively enhances the placement and retention of qualified resources, while stretching capital budget dollars. We would like to welcome You as our Client Partner!
Visit and join us at: www.4C.Solutions
To schedule a comprehensive Demo with our Team, please email us at info@4C.Solutions or phone us at 720.580.0540, Extension 700.