CLIC 2nd Partner Announced

CLIC has taken its second partner. C-Link join as our procurement and tendering partner, and they will be the only partner in that category.

We told members first, in Birmingham on 24 September, at the first CLIC dinner held outside Manchester. That is how CLIC works.

Best in class, or not at all

One partner per category, and only the best solution in it. A partner earns its place by making a member's week easier, not by being available. Built Intelligence hold contract capability. C-Link hold procurement. The two do not sit on top of each other, and that line is drawn deliberately, because the moment two partners compete for the same problem the room stops trusting either of them.

Who C-Link are

C-Link build digital tendering and procurement software for main contractors and the commercial teams inside them. Prequalifying a supply chain, issuing tender documents and ITTs, analysing subcontractor bids, signing and issuing the order. More than ten billion pounds has been tendered through the platform. They also make a serious amount of content for this profession, including the Own the Build podcast, which is where a good number of members already know the name.

Put simply, Built Intelligence are who you go to when your team does not know the contract well enough. C-Link are who you go to when the money is being committed before anyone has properly compared what is in front of them.

"We're delighted to launch our partnership with CLIC. It brings together two organisations with a shared commitment to helping solve the real challenges that commercial leaders in the construction industry face every day.

At C-Link, we believe that better commercial capability starts with bringing together technology, learning and industry expertise. By working alongside CLIC, we now have an exciting opportunity to bring that experience into a leadership community where shared ideas and honest discussions genuinely drive a different way of thinking."

Paul Heming, C-Link

What members get

An exclusive offer for CLIC members and their teams, beyond C-Link's standard terms.

Influence over the product. Members say what is missing, C-Link build it.

A platform for members' own voices, with podcast guest slots arranged through CLIC and only ever with the member's agreement.

The bigger prize

Six dinners in, the same thing keeps surfacing: money leaves a job long before anyone in commercial gets near it. Quotes compared by hand in four different formats with the exclusions buried. Risk pushed down to a subcontractor who goes under and hands it straight back. An invoice arriving three months after work nobody remembers approving. None of that is a contract administration problem. It has already happened by then.

A room full of senior people naming a problem is a good conversation. A room full of senior people working with a partner who can build the answer is something else.

"Most of what goes wrong commercially is set in the fortnight the packages go out, and almost nobody inspects it. Paul and his team have spent years on that specific problem and they talk to this profession honestly, which is the test we apply to everyone who comes near the room.

CLIC exists so senior commercial leaders can say the things the industry avoids saying out loud. Our job is to make sure those conversations end up somewhere, and partners like C-Link are how that happens."

Davin Dhillon, Founder and Chair, CLIC

Still one category at a time

More partners will follow, one category at a time, on the same test. Best in class. Genuinely useful to members. Willing to build something that outlasts the contract.