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120 September 2016 - Business View Caribbean
moving an enormous amount of machinery and mate-
rial across the water is a costly endeavor. “We don’t
want to bid private projects unless we know the cli-
ent’s financial position is good and that he will make
payment at the end of the day,” he says. “In the mean-
time, we are mostly bidding Inter-American and Carib-
bean Development Bank funded projects.”
Another new service being offered by ISD is Design-
Build. Design-Build is a relatively new method of proj-
ect delivery to the Bahamas in which one entity – the
Design-Build team – works under a single contract with
the project owner to provide design and construction
services. In traditional project delivery, an owner must
manage two separate contracts and can sometimes
get caught between the designer and the contractor,
as well as between their separate sub-consultants and
sub-contractors. “It’s still a fairly new concept in the
Bahamas,” admits Wilson, “and I think a lot of clients
are a little bit wary having the contractor and the de-
signer on the same side. And there aren’t too many
companies that will undertake Design-Build here be-
cause they don’t like to take the additional risk. We’ll
actually take the risk; we’ll bring on the designer and
we’ll work with them to make sure that we stick within
their budget.”
Gupta agrees that being willing to take risks is part
of the company’s ethos. “We’re always looking for up-
grades and trying to make ourselves better,” he states.
“If we can see an opportunity, we will invest towards
that opportunity.” Some of ISD’s other investments