The operational experts felt that using service providers in an advisory capacity, in design/build projects that exclude soft services, does not produce the same results as when they are involved directly, assuming some of the risks of delivery. Where a service-based design solution is more difficult to implement, or will cost more in the short term, construction and hard FM partners are less likely to assume those risks because they do not have the same long term incentives.
At the same time, if service providers are employed only in an advisory capacity, there is not the same impetus to drive through suggested changes. There is no real motivation to push for compromise in favour of the service outcomes; and there is less incentive to innovate.
The following anecdote describes the case of one project in development at the time of writing in an arrangement including hard FM only:
"It's a bank-led consortium looking for operators to help with the design - to make it better. We've been approached, but we're not sure whether to go for it because [consulting on design] is not our core business. There is no guarantee they will take our advice. There aren't the same incentives - we wouldn't get involved in arguing and insisting because we wouldn't be delivering the service. As the operator, there is an incentive to insist on what we need."
Involving service experts makes it less likely that buildings are built that are not ft for purpose. One interviewee described an overseas example of a public courts building contracted under a design-build-maintain project, that did not include services:
"The company that lost the bid didn't win because they didn't appreciate that in designing the car park, they needed to separate the witnesses from the judges. But why would they? It should have been in the spec, but since it wasn't… - without an expert on board, how would they know?"