Local Wellington company, Armstrong Downes Commercial (ADC), is the Asia-Pacific Region Winner of the Operational
Improvement Award at the World Commerce & Contracting Innovation & Excellence Awards 2021.
This accolade was awarded to ADC and LawHawk for their work to transform the New Zealand construction subcontracting
process.
ADC is a commercial construction company operating in the Wellington region for nearly 30 years. Project labour is
outsourced to over 400 subcontractors annually with 12 ADC employees responsible for managing subcontract negotiations
and contracts.
Phil Hebden, Commercial Manager at ADC, saw first-hand the magnitude of time and cost spent handling this agreement,
explaining that “[ADC] had recently shifted to the Master Builders SA – 2017 subcontract, which is the best subcontract
document available to the industry, but we were still spending on average 3 hours per contract. When you do the math,
that economically is not a good use of employee time.”
Driven to find a cost-efficient and time-saving solution, Hebden reached out to legal automation experts LawHawk for a
solution to streamline and automate the process.
ADC and LawHawk, with support from Master Builders, have worked closely together to create an automated solution for
drafting, negotiating, and signing ADC’s subcontracts. A process that would often take 4 weeks or longer, can now be
done in 1 hour.
“It’s an absolute success story,” says Phil. “Our subcontractors are now signing agreements instantly off their mobile
phones as they leave the pre-let meetings.”
The Innovation & Excellence Awards are home to the biggest and brightest stars in commercial and contract management. Nominations for
the Operational Improvement Award included submissions from Nexdigm and Evalueserve, both companies with a global team
and presence. “We are incredibly humbled by this award, and we are proud of the work the team has done to revolutionise
the subcontracting process,” says Hebden.
This award highlights ADC’s commitment to digital transformation, and the journey towards continual improvement the team
have embarked on.
Judges for the awards included highly acclaimed professionals such as Mark Gregory – General Counsel at Rolls Royce,
Oliver Hart – Professor at Harvard University, Bill Cox – CEO at Aurecon, Mari Sako – Professor at the University of
Oxford. Judges are leading professionals that span the field of Contract and Commercial Management in public, private,
and non-profit sectors.