The construction industry has a problem.
We've become so obsessed with cutting costs that we've forgotten what we're trying to achieve. Every conversation starts with "How cheap can we make this?" when it should start with "What value are we creating?"
This cost-first mentality is limiting our potential and actively damaging our industry. Projects run over budget, teams burn out, and clients walk away frustrated. Meanwhile, the firms that are thriving are the ones that have flipped the script entirely.
They've realised that real success isn't about spending less. It's about delivering more. More value, that is.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: cheaper is not always better and can have long-term adverse effects.
When you squeeze budgets too hard, quality suffers. When quality suffers, problems emerge, and problems are expensive to fix, especially when they appear after handover.
"Savings" from using cheaper materials or rushing through design phases quickly becomes a liability when dealing with defects, delays, and damaged relationships. But the hidden costs go deeper than rework. Cost-cutting creates a culture of corner-cutting. Teams stop innovating because innovation takes time and resources. They stop collaborating because collaboration feels inefficient. They stop learning because learning doesn't appear on this month's profit and loss sheet (P&L).
The result?
A disengaged workforce, processes that don't improve, and a business trapped in a race to the bottom. You might win projects based on price, but you'll lose staff, profits, reputation and competitive advantage.
Value-led thinking flips this entirely. Instead of asking "How little can we spend?" it asks "What outcomes do we want to achieve, and what's the smartest way to get there?"
This shift changes everything. Suddenly, spending money on better design software isn't a cost; it's an investment in accuracy and speed. Training your team isn't an overhead; it's building capability that pays dividends on every project. Taking time to get the process right isn't inefficiency; it's preventing the chaos that comes from getting it wrong.
Companies that think long-term consistently outperform those that don't.
They have lower staff turnover because people want to work for organisations that invest in quality. They have better client relationships because they deliver what they promise. They win more work because their reputation precedes them.
The maths is simple: a 10% increase in project value delivered is worth far more than a 10% reduction in costs. But while cost reduction has a ceiling, value creation doesn't.
People genuinely want to buy quality, they want to invest in teams and businesses that will pay them back tenfold in the long term, they just need to be shown the why it's worth their investment, whether that's speed of delivery, improved quality and accuracy, or long term return on investment (ROI) during the operational expenditure (OpEx) phase of an assets lifecycle.
The Get It Right Initiative estimates that 21% of project value in UK construction is wasted on rework, equating to around £21 billion per year—well above typical project profit margins of just 3%. Even when indirect and unmeasured costs are removed, rework still significantly eats into profits.
Root causes include inadequate planning, late design changes, poor communication, coordination issues, and misalignment between design and construction, often stemming from budget pressure or rushed timelines.
Of course, none of this matters if you can't prove it. And that's where most firms fall down, as they don't measure value, so they can't demonstrate it.
The good news is that the data you need is probably already there. Project completion times, error rates, client satisfaction scores, and repeat business percentages tell the story of value creation. The key is connecting them to your decisions.
When you implement a new process, track what changes.
When you invest in training, measure the impact on your team members
When you choose quality over cheapness, document the long-term results.
Over time, you'll build an evidence base that makes the case for value-led thinking undeniable. But don't just collect data for the sake of collecting it; use it to drive decisions. If certain approaches consistently deliver better outcomes, make them standard. If particular investments keep paying off, make more of them. Let the data guide you toward what works, not what feels like it should work.
How to Start the Value Conversation in Your Business
Making this shift isn't just about changing what you measure but how you think. And that starts with the conversations you have.
Stop talking about cost savings and start talking about outcome improvements. Instead of celebrating a project that was under budget, celebrate one that exceeded client expectations. Instead of focusing on time saved, focus on problems prevented.
Think of it as the Happiness Index. How are you improving your team's and clients' lives and businesses, and feeding into their goals and vision for the future?
These conversations and mindset shifts need to happen at every level. Discuss what success looks like with clients beyond just hitting deadlines and budgets. With your team, explore how their work contributes to bigger outcomes. With leadership, present investment cases based on value creation, not just cost justification.
The language you use matters. "Efficiency" becomes "effectiveness." "Cheaper" becomes "smarter." "Faster" becomes "more reliable." Small shifts in terminology reflect bigger shifts in thinking.
The beauty of value-led thinking is that you don't need massive changes to see huge results. Minor adjustments, consistently applied, compound over time.
No doubt you will have heard of the 1% mindset.
The 1% per day improvement mindset is the idea that making tiny, consistent progress compounds into massive results over time. Just a small daily gain builds momentum, skill, and confidence. It's about focusing on steady, manageable growth rather than dramatic overnight change.
Start with your processes. Look for the handovers that always go wrong, the reviews that never catch problems, the communications that always get misunderstood. These friction points are value destroyers: fix them, and everything else improves.
Invest in your people. They need the tools and time to do their best work, as well as proper training and onboarding to embed the tools. A designer with the right software and adequate time will deliver better outcomes than one constantly fighting with outdated tools and impossible deadlines.
Standardise what works. When you find processes that consistently deliver good results, document them. Make them repeatable. Turn your best practices into standard practices.
And measure everything. Not just costs and timelines, but also quality indicators, client feedback, and team satisfaction. What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets improved.
The firms that master this approach don't just survive the industry's challenges; they thrive despite them. They're winning the best projects, attracting the best talent, and building the kind of reputation that makes success inevitable.
The question isn't whether you can afford to shift from cost-led to value-led thinking. It's whether you can afford not to.
Ready to transform how your business thinks about value? Join us at our Elevations event on 4 September. David Philp, Chief Value Officer at Bentley, will dive deeper into why our definition of value is holding us back and into practical strategies for making this transformation real.