It is the Proponent, in conjunction with the Owner that provides the skills, experience and capacity to innovate and offer the best Project Solution and best TOC in their Project Proposal to the Owner, as well as provide the project management capability to achieve a good AOC outcome.
Competition motivates the Proponent to perform because it provides a direct measure or comparator of one Proponent against the other.
From the commencement of the market engagement to the signing of the PAA the focus of the Owner should be to design and conduct a selection process that creates relevant opportunities for interested and qualified Proponents to differentiate themselves from their competitors, in their ability to provide innovative solutions in the Project Proposal that best satisfies the VfM Statement.
The term 'relevant opportunities' should be understood as meaning effective competition on all elements of the project which are relevant to performance of contractual obligations for that project, and which are material to differentiating one Proponent from another.
These elements include not just engineering capability and alliancing behaviours, but also project management, developing project costs and assessing the risks and their overall potential to drive better outcomes in all of the KRAs.
The Owner should develop selection processes requiring observation of Proponent teams in action. Whilst the preferred behaviours will be specific to successful alliancing, i.e. collaboration, innovation, making best-for-project decisions and transparency, the Owner should also seek competent technical, project and risk management skills as key attributes the Owner is 'buying' in a Proponent's team. These skills are fundamental to project success.