MIPIM 2019: Perfect Circle MD reflects on this year’s event

With a fresh set of objectives for 2019, my inaugural MIPIM visit as managing director of Perfect Circle gave the perfect opportunity to talk to so many property, construction and infrastructure suppliers and specialists, who are all gathered in one place with a common purpose; to build better businesses, to improve our industry and our nation.

This year’s MIPIM – the world’s largest property event held on the Cote d’Azur – was certainly not my first, but I approached it with a very different purpose and a renewed focus on having as many meaningful conversations with supply chain partners as I could across the intense few days.

It’s been four weeks since MIPIM 2019 closed, where a whirlwind of meetings, seminars, networking, industry debates and dozens of conversations took place. The hard work is continuing and has absolutely created such a positive buzz of contacts and opportunities.

I spoke with a vast range of businesses, meeting architects, engineers, surveyors, lawyers…from among the 26,000 people at MIPIM and 3,800 CEOs and seniors. If there was ever a perfect rendezvous for suppliers, then MIPIM is definitely the place.

It was useful to meet supply partners we already work with, as well as those who are new to hearing about frameworks and Perfect Circle – or those who had and were keen to find out more, to break down the barriers and misconceptions. From micro businesses to larger SMEs, my sphere of activity was to listen to views and really expand on the understanding of what Perfect Circle is about, the huge benefits of working with us and how to develop future opportunities.

Joined by my senior colleagues from founding shareholders Pick Everard, Gleeds and AECOM, undoubtedly Perfect Circle’s profile was successfully raised this year in Cannes. We gave confidence to the supply chain that there are opportunities abound through the procurement route Perfect Circle holds, to work in collaboration and deliver real value for our clients.

Perfect Circle’s position on the Scape National Built Environment Consultancy Services (BECS) framework can unlock opportunities for suppliers that they may not be able to currently access.

Local businesses can yield pipeline and projects with public sector organisations through supply chain contracts with Perfect Circle – the BECS framework allows a fully compliant direct award, working with an extensive local supply chain is vital to providing clients with teams who can build trust, deliver excellence and social value.

We know from conversations with our supply partners that Perfect Circle brings meaningful and tangible benefits – and for micro businesses, we have evidence that they have grown their businesses, employed and trained new people.

I came back from MIPIM with a wealth of business cards and plenty of contacts to follow up with. Particularly interesting is the number of suppliers with diverse services and skills which could expand the framework offering to clients, making Perfect Circle the supplier of choice. I look forward to the coming weeks, where I will be catching up with the interested and eager suppliers I met and discussing how we can work better together for Perfect Circle to assist them in the delivery of more public sector projects.

An added dimension to MIPIM this year for me was developing the strength of Perfect Circle working with the expert contractors on Scape Group’s construction and civil engineering frameworks. The suite of frameworks is designed to enable positive outcomes for clients, projects, and communities. Collaborative relationships and behaviours between frameworks are building an alliancing model of long-term partnering; Scape procure for value, our collaboration delivers it to our clients.

Harnessing the power of collaboration to improve the industry was a strong theme to our debates over our Perfect Circle MIPIM dinner, a unique event that brought together national and regional framework partners, Scape Group and some clients. I look forward to developing our future stronger alliances and offering further benefits and value realisation models for our clients.

I was also able to talk to our sector journalists about Perfect Circle’s reach and scope. Building magazine was particularly interested in how we work in providing a ‘consultancy marketplace’ to give clients not only choice, but compliance in procurement and quality in performance.

The journalist from Construction News wanted to know about the commitment to provide fair payment terms for suppliers, how the Scape frameworks are performance managed to ensure payment terms are met – and how we are working to exceed the government target of 30 days payment for SMEs to support them even more.

Perfect Circle is unique in its joint venture and supply chain collaboration of expert built environment, business and management consultants. Listening to people allows us to respond, build and succeed together, to provide the services our clients need, in ways that improve our industry.

MIPIM 2019 gave me the perfect platform to build positive outcomes from my objectives, it was my most successful MIPIM yet. Thank you to everyone who took the time to be involved, we made it the professional industry event we all need.