Introduction
Brendan Mullan is a Commercial Operating Partner at STARCOZ, based in Galway, Ireland. He works mainly with owner-led contractors and specialist trades, and is open to discussing remote support with suitable US construction businesses. He is also the author of The Upstream Solution.
His work sits on the commercial side of running a construction business — the decisions owners and their teams make about margin, cashflow and the routines that protect both. You can find his Commercial Operating Partner page through STARCOZ.
We asked him three questions about what actually happens when a job starts slipping.
When watching costs isn't enough
Asked about a job that slipped on margin or cashflow where the usual advice didn't fit, Brendan pointed to a specific case.
"One business I worked with recorded a €250,000 first-quarter loss. Simply telling the team to watch costs wouldn't have given them enough direction."
What followed was not a cost-cutting programme. It was a change in how the business understood its own jobs.
"We introduced project performance tracking, regular profitability reviews and commercial skills development. The work was about understanding performance on individual jobs and helping the team use that information to make better decisions. Within 12 months, the business had achieved a €60,000 profit."
The distinction matters. Cost control was part of it, but so was whether the people closest to the work could read the figures and act on them.
"A report only helps when it leads to timely action."
The part most advice leaves out
Brendan is direct about where he thinks standard guidance on protecting margin and cashflow falls short.
"People. Most advice is about systems: better reports, new software, tighter cost control. Those help, but they all depend on people updating the right information at the right time and acting on what it tells them."
He describes the patterns he sees repeatedly — the behaviours behind the numbers rather than the numbers themselves.
"A variation that never gets priced because nobody owns it. A cost report everyone has learned to ignore. An owner who reconciles everything at night because they don't trust what's in front of them."
This is why he works mentality first, and why he places weight on commercial routines: who updates what, when, and what happens next.
"If you improve the routine without addressing the ownership, understanding and behaviour behind it, the same problems can return."
For owners reading this, the practical takeaway is uncomfortable but clear: a new reporting tool or a tighter cost policy will not fix a job where nobody owns the variation, nobody trusts the report, and the owner is doing the reconciliation alone at night. Those are behavioural problems wearing a systems costume.
The order owners get wrong
On what owners decide too quickly when margin and cashflow start to slip, Brendan is specific.
"They act before they know the position. Under pressure, the reflex is the big fix: hire another QS, buy new software, cut costs across the board, or fire off contract notices. It feels like action, but it's often a decision built on information nobody has checked."
The alternative he proposes is a sequence, not a single move.
"Establish the position first: what's confirmed, what's uncertain and what's missing. Then talk. Most problems on a job are shared between the contractor, the subcontractors and the suppliers, and they're solved faster together than from behind a notice or a system. Then fix the routines, so you don't end up back in the same place."
That order — position, conversation, routine — runs against the instinct to do something visible immediately. But it is the difference between a decision and a reaction.
Where AI fits, and where it doesn't
Brendan uses AI in his own work, but with a clear boundary.
"AI helps me organise records, compare reports and flag differences for investigation, so I can spend more time applying commercial judgement and working through decisions with the team. I check its outputs against the source information and remain responsible for my advice."
It is a useful model for contractors considering similar tools: AI as a way to surface what needs attention, not as a substitute for commercial judgement or accountability.
What this means in practice
Three practical points emerge from the conversation.
First, when a job slips, establish the position before acting. Separate what is confirmed from what is uncertain and what is missing. Decisions made on unchecked information tend to create new problems rather than solve existing ones.
Second, look at the behaviour behind the numbers. Who owns the variation? Who updates the report? Does anyone act on it? If the answer is unclear, the system is not the problem.
Third, fix the routine after the position is known and the conversation has happened. Routines that are imposed before the underlying ownership and understanding are addressed tend to decay back to the old pattern.
Brendan's own framing is that cost control matters, but so does what people understand about the figures and what they do with them. For owner-led contractors, that is a harder fix than a new piece of software — and a more durable one.
His Commercial Operating Partner page is available at STARCOZ, and his book The Upstream Solution is available through his author site. He also offers a Future Ready Business Scorecard for contractors assessing where they stand.