30 Years Strong | Leadership Series 7 of 12 | Best Value Over Lowest Bid

The lowest bid is almost never the lowest cost. 

It only looks that way on the day the decision is made. The real cost reveals itself later — in change orders, safety infractions, gaps in a subcontractor’s internal support (HSE, fleet, finance, etc.), which can cause delays and strained relationships. By then the savings on paper are gone, and what remains is a more expensive project delivered under more pressure. 

Earlier in this series I wrote about growth through trust — how OE disciplines its own sales so that the work we take on strengthens both our customers and OE’s organization rather than strains it. This article looks at the other side of the table: how a sophisticated Customer purchases utility support services, and why the most disciplined Customers stopped treating price as the whole story. 

The lowest bid is a price. Best value is an outcome. The two are not the same. 

Why Buying on Price Alone Is Usually the Most Expensive Choice in Infrastructure 

The logic of awarding on price alone is seductive because it is simple. One number, easily compared, defensible so long as you ignore the project details and the downstream effects. For straightforward purchases, it works. 

Infrastructure is not a straightforward purchase. 

The work happens around live, buried, critical systems, on regulated sites, under tight timelines, with real public consequences if something goes wrong. In that environment, the bid is not the cost of the work. It is the cost of the work if everything goes as planned — and the reason this work is difficult is that conditions in the field rarely match the assumptions on the page. 

When a Customer awards on price alone, they are not getting a cheaper project. They are inheriting the gap between the winning bid and the real cost of delivering the work safely, properly, and on schedule — and it does not disappear. It surfaces as a change order, a delay, a corner quietly cut, or a partner who has no margin left to absorb the unexpected. Someone pays for that gap, and more often than not it is the Customer. 

Total Cost of Ownership: The Costs That Never Appear on the Bid Sheet 

What separates experienced Customers from the rest is total cost of ownership — evaluating the full cost of a decision over the life of the project, not just the figure quoted at the start. 

In utility services, the costs that never appear on the bid sheet are often the ones that matter most: the schedule impact when an under-resourced service provider can’t keep pace, the liability exposure when a partner’s safety record is thinner than their proposal suggested, the cost of managing a vendor who needs managing, and the downstream cost of a failed restoration that better work would have prevented. 

None of those costs are visible on award day. All of them are real. A Customer who evaluates only the upfront figure is not avoiding those costs — only choosing not to see them until the invoice arrives in a different form. 

The most experienced infrastructure Customers have learned to price the things that don’t appear in the price. 

What Disciplined, Best-Value Buying Looks Like 

Best value is not a softer way of saying “more expensive.” It is a more honest way of measuring what a project will actually cost over its life. 

A careful Customer looks past the price and asks harder questions. Does this partner have the capacity to deliver the scope without straining? Is the safety record documented, or merely asserted? Can they show a track record on work of this complexity? Will one accountable team own the outcome, or will coordination become the Customer’s problem? When conditions change — and they will — does this partner have the standards and the margin to respond without cutting corners? 

Those questions are not designed to favour price. They favour the partner most likely to deliver the outcome the Customer actually needs — which, over the whole project, is usually the better economic decision as well. 

One Accountable Team Versus Several Companies and Quotes 

Awarding on price alone tends to complicate a project. The cheapest excavation provider, the cheapest restoration crew, the cheapest traffic control — each awarded separately, each optimizing for their own number, none accountable for how the pieces fit together. 

The Customer is left managing the gaps. Every handoff between separately awarded vendors is a place where schedule, communication, and responsibility can fall through — and where, when something goes wrong, the answer is always that it was someone else’s scope. 

One lesson of three decades in this industry is that integration is not just operationally simpler — it is a procurement decision that lowers risk. When hydro excavation, restoration, traffic control, soil recycling, and project coordination sit under one accountable team aligned to shared standards, the Customer gets a single point of responsibility instead of several separate companies and quotes. The cost of coordination doesn’t vanish, but it stops being the Customer’s to absorb. 

That is the practical math of infrastructure delivery: when accountability is fragmented, risk does not disappear — it moves to the Customer. 

What 30 Years Has Taught Us About Being the Right Partner 

OE has never been built to be the cheapest line item on a bid sheet. After 30 years operating across Ontario, that has been a deliberate choice. 

We have learned that Customers who service their communities seek quality and experience — they understand that the partner they choose can make or break a project. They don’t ask us to be the cheapest option. They ask us to show up ready, hold the standard when conditions get difficult, and deliver an outcome they can stand behind. 

In infrastructure, that is what value actually means. Not the price on the day of the decision, but the true cost when the work is done and people are relying on it. 

Looking Ahead 

As OE moves through its 30th year, we partner with Customers the same way we always have: 

• Helping Customers evaluate utility services on total cost and outcome, not upfront price alone 
• Bringing integrated services, with one team accountable end-to-end, to projects that would otherwise fragment across vendors 
• Earning the kind of long-term partnerships that make the next project easier than the last 

In Closing 

Every infrastructure Customer faces the same pressure: the lowest bid is the easiest decision to defend and the hardest to question. 

The price on the page is only the first step. The true cost is paid over the life of the work — in experience, quality, and safety, and whether the partner beside you can deliver what they promised when it matters. 

After 30 years, the case we make to every Customer is clear: OE delivers the best overall value and the lowest true cost when the full scope of work is considered. Our focus on safe execution, productivity, and operational efficiency helps reduce delays, rework, and unnecessary costs — ensuring the work is completed safely, reliably, and efficiently as possible. 

George Chung 

Chief Sales Officer | OE Utility Services | www.oeservices.ca 

What does best value mean to you when you choose a partner? Please contact us to discuss and find out how OE Utility Services can help you! 

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to read our leadership team’s prior articles in our 30 Years Strong Leadership Series: 

1 of 12 — Honouring Our 30-Year Legacy and Shaping What’s Next — Keith Boulton, CEO 

2 of 12 — Reliability at Scale: Leading Operational Excellence — Tony Kerwin, COO 

3 of 12 — Growth Through Trust: The Discipline Behind Sustainable Sales — George Chung, CSO 

4 of 12 — Built to Last: The Financial Discipline Behind 30 Years of Reliable Growth — David Branigan, CFO 

5 of 12 — People First: Building Culture in Utility Services — Nicole Chapman, CHRO 

6 of 12 — The Most Dangerous Word in Safe Digging: Safer Than the Alternative Is Not the Same as Safe — Tony Kerwin, COO