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After a $200K Quote to Connect a Vendor's "Out-of-the-Box" API, Lendlease Started Pressure-Testing Interoperability Claims Before Contract
During a recent procurement cycle, Lendlease asked two platform vendors how their APIs worked. Both said the same thing: ready to go, out of the box. Then one came back with a quote: $200,000 to actually build the integration. Lendlease no longer works with that vendor.
That's the example Tom Balme, who runs portfolio-level technology assessment at Lendlease Investment Management, used to open his presentation in the IT/OT track at NexusCon 2025. As the industry shifts toward shared APIs and connected data platforms, the gap between what vendors call "interoperable" and what owners can actually plug into has become the largest gray area of the procurement process.
A vendor can technically have an API and still charge six figures to make it useful for any specific buyer. The work hides in the data mapping, point normalization, and security review that sit on top of the endpoint. Lendlease used to take "we have an API" at face value. It no longer does.
The lesson is reshaping the procurement framework at Lendlease. Outdated RFPs designed for mechanical maintenance contracts are being replaced by structured platform pressure testing and long working sessions where the buyer hunts for parts of the platform the vendor isn't volunteering. External subject matter experts now sit on every technology selection committee. Change management plans are being negotiated before the contract is signed, not bolted on afterward.
"What that wasn't interoperable with," Balme told the room, "was our budget." He closed by putting the question back to vendors: Do you want your product widely deployed, or do you want to charge a premium for connecting it to anything else?
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During a recent procurement cycle, Lendlease asked two platform vendors how their APIs worked. Both said the same thing: ready to go, out of the box. Then one came back with a quote: $200,000 to actually build the integration. Lendlease no longer works with that vendor.
That's the example Tom Balme, who runs portfolio-level technology assessment at Lendlease Investment Management, used to open his presentation in the IT/OT track at NexusCon 2025. As the industry shifts toward shared APIs and connected data platforms, the gap between what vendors call "interoperable" and what owners can actually plug into has become the largest gray area of the procurement process.
A vendor can technically have an API and still charge six figures to make it useful for any specific buyer. The work hides in the data mapping, point normalization, and security review that sit on top of the endpoint. Lendlease used to take "we have an API" at face value. It no longer does.
The lesson is reshaping the procurement framework at Lendlease. Outdated RFPs designed for mechanical maintenance contracts are being replaced by structured platform pressure testing and long working sessions where the buyer hunts for parts of the platform the vendor isn't volunteering. External subject matter experts now sit on every technology selection committee. Change management plans are being negotiated before the contract is signed, not bolted on afterward.
"What that wasn't interoperable with," Balme told the room, "was our budget." He closed by putting the question back to vendors: Do you want your product widely deployed, or do you want to charge a premium for connecting it to anything else?
Register for the next Nexus Labs event.
Sign up for the newsletter to get 5 stories like this per week:
This is a great piece!
I agree.