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Fixing a price before the cost is known is a normal commercial act and frequently the only way to win the work. What makes it a decision later is the term: the price is fixed for years and the cost is not, so every quarter reveals more of a number that was estimated once, by people who were reasonable about a world that has since moved. By the time it reaches an agenda the contract has usually been reclassified in the room from an asset into an embarrassment, and the conversation becomes how to get out of it. That is not the comparison. This pack turns it into a subtraction and an annuity. What the contract pays a year, less what it now costs to deliver, across the years still to run and discounted, is what honoring it is worth from here. Against it: the break fee once, plus the other business with the same customer, which a termination usually ends and which is frequently the larger half. Both figures are normally negative and the decision is which negative is smaller. What settles it is where the cost of delivering goes next, so the whole question reduces to the break-even cost movement — how far that cost can travel before breaking beats honoring. It stops on six conditions: no annual value across the term, no bid estimate, no cost on this contract alone, no term, no costed exit, and no figure for the relationship beyond it.
What is the Fixed Price Strategy Pack
The Fixed Price Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: you agreed a price before you knew the cost, and what does the rest of the term cost? It is built around one organizing claim: losing money and being worth breaking are different findings, and the second one needs a number almost no one has. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a contract model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced commitments, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
Losing money and being worth breaking are different findings, and the second one needs a number almost nobody has. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even cost movement — how far the cost can move before leaving is cheaper. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the cost of leaving a fixed-price contract is missing
Not because anybody is hiding it. Because it takes two figures that live in different places. What this contract costs to deliver on its own is in the project ledger, and most companies allocate cost at a level above the contract — so the single figure the decision needs does not exist and the conversation runs on impressions.
What breaking it would cost is not a commercial question at all. It is a reading of the termination clause, the liquidated damages, and the re-procurement provisions, and in most companies it has never been put to a lawyer — including in the meetings where leaving is being discussed. So the room compares a number it has to a number it does not, and reaches a conclusion anyway.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What the contract pays a year, less what it now costs to deliver, across the years still to run and discounted, is what honoring it is worth. Against it: the break fee once, plus the other business with the same customer. Then the whole decision reduces to one figure — how much further the cost of delivering can move before breaking becomes cheaper than honoring.
What is in the Fixed Price Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why a fixed price becomes a decision later, the arithmetic, the four endings that actually happen, and the six halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or a contract review, with nine sourced commitments and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Contract model. Eleven candidate cost movements across the columns, in both directions, and the break-even movement that decides it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next fixed price cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced commitments — four kept delivering, two were renegotiated, one was paid out of, one failed, and one made billions.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: what it pays, what it was priced against, what it costs now, the term, and what leaving would cost.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. The price mechanism, the bid estimate, costing the contract alone, costing the exit, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Fixed Price Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive with a contract that has been described as a disaster for two quarters and costed for none of them; a chief financial officer being asked to approve an exit against a number no one has produced; a commercial or contracts director who knows the termination clause has never been read; a delivery director carrying a margin they did not set and are not measured on; a board member reading a loss with no alternative beside it; a private equity operating partner underwriting a business whose earnings sit inside long agreements; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a $420m-a-year contract signed at a 17.1 percent margin now costs $441m to deliver — losing $21m a year, with 6.5 years to run and $100.1m of value left in the term. That is the fact that gets it onto an agenda. It is not the decision: breaking it would cost $480.9m, of which $285.9m is the other business with the same customer, so honoring it is better by $380.8m and costs would have to move another 18.1 percent before that reverses.
Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast the cost of delivering — that figure is your own judgment, and the Model tab sweeps it in both directions precisely because no one can settle it in advance. It holds what leaving costs at the contract's own horizon, which is a simplification worth testing where the answer is close. It does not price what a known willingness to exit hard contracts does to your position in the next bid. And it says nothing about what the contract carries beyond its margin — a qualification, a reference, or a position in a sector you intend to bid again.
Questions about the Fixed Price Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and ten supporting rows. What the remaining term is worth at today's cost of delivering, and the break-even cost movement — how much further that cost can move before breaking is cheaper than honoring. Around them: the margin the price was set at against the margin it earns now, how far the cost has moved since signing, what it earns a year, what breaking it would cost and how much of that is the relationship beyond the contract, the term in years of profit, the break fee in years of what the contract pays, and the contract against revenue. The Model tab sweeps the cost of delivering in both directions, and one row turns from Yes to No at the point where honoring stops being cheaper.
- Our contract is losing money. Should we get out of it?
- Not on that fact alone, and that is the whole point of the pack. Losing money and being worth breaking are different findings. In the worked case a contract losing $21m a year is better to honor by $380.8m, because breaking it would cost $480.9m — and more than half of that is the other business with the same customer, which was not in anybody's paper.
- We don't know what the contract costs to deliver.
- Most companies do not, because cost is allocated above the contract. It is a week with the project ledger and the manual sets out the five places it hides. Until it exists the conversation runs on an allocation somebody made for a different purpose.
- Does this only apply to construction and defense?
- No. It applies wherever a price is fixed and a cost is not: long-term supply agreements, energy and power contracts, outsourcing and managed services, leases, licensing deals, fixed tariffs sold to customers, and any multi-year commitment signed before an input market moved. Two of the nine cases are leases and energy rather than projects.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced commitments: Boeing's KC-46, WeWork, Bulb Energy, Spirit AeroSystems, Ørsted, General Dynamics on Ajax, EDF at Hinkley Point C, the UK PFI hospital estate, and Southwest's fuel hedging. Each is dated, read through what was agreed and what moved underneath it, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Southwest is in the set to hold the other end, with both halves of its record stated: billions gained, then losses on the same program. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Fixed Price Strategy Pack?
- The Fixed Price Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: You agreed a price before you knew the cost — what does the rest of the term cost? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, contract model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: losing money and being worth breaking are different findings, and the second one needs a number almost nobody has. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Fixed Price Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Fixed Price Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why a fixed price becomes a decision later, the arithmetic, the four endings that actually happen, and the six halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or a contract review, with nine sourced commitments and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Contract model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate cost movements across the columns, in both directions, and the break-even movement that decides it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next fixed price cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced commitments — four kept delivering, two were renegotiated, one was paid out of, one failed, and one made billions. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: what it pays, what it was priced against, what it costs now, the term, and what leaving would cost. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — The price mechanism, the bid estimate, costing the contract alone, costing the exit, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Fixed Price Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.