Our Procurement Strategy

We spend two thirds of our revenues in procuring goods and services from our supply chain partners, making them an invaluable resource to our business, our customers and the communities we work in.

As we deliver some of the largest and most complex construction and infrastructure projects, along with projects at the heart of local communities, our Procurement Strategy sets out how our supply chain partners can help deliver our five values of Lean, Expert, Trusted, Safe and Sustainable, making it clear what we expect of those who we work with and what we hold ourselves accountable to.

It has seven principles:

  • Become the customer of choice for the best of the supply chain by being easy to do business with
  • Ensure that we have the right, skilled people for the job, a strong talent pipeline and that we provide an environment where they excel
  • Put in place processes that work, are compliant and transparent, making the best use of technology to deliver for our business and for our supply chain partners
  • Mitigate and manage risk through early and closer integration with our supply chain partners
  • Work together to identify market risks and sharing forecasts that enable early commitment and investment where it is needed
  • Keep safety and wellbeing at the forefront of all that we do – it underpins every relationship, transaction and choice that we make.

In 2024, Balfour Beatty paid c.6,500 supply chain partners across the UK, processing around 500,000 invoices.

As a trusted market leader, we are committed to paying our valued supply chain partners on time and to mutually agreed terms. Our July – December 2024 supply chain payment data submission to the UK Government shows we paid 98% of all invoices within a maximum of 60 days, improving upon our already strong position.

As part of our commitment to invest in systems and technologies that will standardise our payment approach and enhance our accuracy and transparency, in January 2025 we launched Invoice Gateway, our new internal digital invoice processing system. Working alongside our other digital tools, DocuSign, ConstructionLine, Jaggaer and Tradex, Invoice Gateway will further help us to improve overall efficiency and reduce invoice processing times.

Working together to ensure prompt payment

Our ability to pay our suppliers on time is reliant on us working together in partnership. We are constantly seeking opportunities to improve how we communicate and collaborate with our supply chain partners to phase out manually intensive, unreliable or slow processes. By working together to streamline, standardise and automate our processes, using modern integrated tools, we can continue to improve reliability and speed up payment.

Following these key principles, will also help us to ensure that invoices are being paid on time:

  • Always ensure you receive a PDF copy of the Purchase Order for the goods or services you are supplying
  • Ensure all goods and services are delivered prior to submitting invoices via Tradex
  • If a credit note is required, ensure you quote the original invoice number you are crediting, along with the original Purchase Order number
  • Ensure the hire contact reference (Plant) or a delivery note number (Materials) is populated correctly
  • Submit one statement per month for processing which should be consolidated into one excel document

For more information on our processes for paying supply chain partners, please visit our Supply Chain Partner Payment page.