"We're waiting for someone else"
The weekly call ends. Same as last week.
The architect is waiting for the landlord's comments. The landlord's agent is waiting for revised drawings. The contractor can't give you a start date until the permit is in. Everyone is polite. Nobody is being difficult.
You've told your CEO a date for the new office or shop. Now you hang up and try to work out whether that date still holds.
You can't. And you're the one who will have to explain it.
Here is what makes this so hard to fix. When they say they're waiting for someone else, they're usually telling the truth.
Every plan can be right, and the date still slips
Most HQ teams treat this as a performance problem. Chase the contractor. Escalate to the landlord. Book a flight.
Sometimes someone really is underperforming. But check each party's plan and you may find nothing wrong with any of them.
The landlord has a date for handing over the space. The architect has a date for the drawings. The contractor has a date for finishing the works in its contract. The broker's date was the lease signing.
Look at that list again. Your opening date isn't on it.
Your opening date only exists where those plans meet, and nobody on the list has signed up for it. Most of them couldn't if you asked. A contractor can't promise what a landlord will do.
So the date falls to you by default, from a desk in another country, on top of your job.
How a date slips with nobody at fault
Follow one chain. It's an example, and yours will differ by country and by lease.
The contractor can't start without the permit. The permit needs the architect's drawings. The drawings need the landlord's approval. The landlord wants to see the brand concept, and that's sitting at your HQ, waiting for a sign-off.
Four links, four honest answers. Lose a week at each one and you've lost a month, without anyone missing a date they agreed to.
Notice who is in that chain. You are.
In some corporations an opening runs 6 to 18 months, depending on the decision process. That's a wide range, and a good part of it gets decided at your own HQ.
The cost rarely appears as a line called "delay". It shows up as HQ time, extra flights and work done twice.
What one plan actually takes
In our 5Cs Framework™ this control is COMMAND: one opening plan. It sounds bigger than it is. You leave everyone's plan where it is and put their dates on one page, so you can see where they meet.
Five things make that page work.
Ask your CEO, your operations lead and your architect what the opening date is, and whether it means the keys, the first working day or the launch event. If the answers differ, you don't yet have a date anyone can defend.
Start at the opening and walk backwards through handover, works, permits, long-lead items and the lease. Each step gets a latest date. Sometimes this is how you find out the date was never possible. Better to learn that now than from a contractor in month five.
List what one party needs from another, more than who is doing what. "Revised drawings to the landlord" is a line. Who owes it, by when, and who is waiting for it? The lines with no name are usually where you'll get stuck first.
Budget approval. Brand sign-off. Lease signature. Give each a latest date and treat it like any supplier's date. It's uncomfortable, and it may be the most useful line on the page.
They need time to read the plan every week, standing to chase every party, and a duty to tell you early. They also need to be on your side of the table, because the landlord and the contractor have their own interests to look after. Here's a test: if that person were away for two weeks, would the date slip? If it would, the plan is in their head and not on the page.
If this landed on top of your day job
You probably got this project because you know the business. Nobody took anything else off your desk.
Start with the page and a fixed half hour a week. That takes no new hires.
Be honest about the limit, though. From HQ you can't tell whether a date someone gave you is real. At some point you need a person in that country who can go and look.
If you have a real estate or project team
Your team knows how to run this. The gap is more likely distance and load: several sites, a country nobody knows well, a second opening starting before the first has finished.
So leave ownership with them, and check one thing. Does the person who owns the date hear about problems first-hand, or second-hand and late?
This week: one page, 60 minutes
- Write the opening date at the top, and what it means.
- Draw four columns: what has to happen, who owns it, by when, who is waiting for it.
- Walk backwards from the opening. Put HQ's own decisions in.
- Send it to every party. Ask each one to confirm or correct their own lines in writing.
- Mark every line with no name or no date. Those are the agenda for your next call.
Then book the same half hour next week.
That half hour is our recommended habit, and it isn't a term of any contract. Your lease and your contracts set the dates that bind you, so check them, and ask local counsel for legal advice.
"Our architect is handling it"
They may be. Some architects do take this on. Ask two questions. Is the opening date in their scope, in writing? And when the delay comes from their own drawings, who tells you?
A contractor's project manager can run the works very well. They still work for the contractor.
"We already have a project manager at HQ." Good. Do they have the time, and someone local they can trust?
"So this is one more fee." It can be, and you can do everything above without us. Our fee is fixed and in writing, and partner fees stay separate and approved by you. Set it against the HQ time and the trips you're already paying for, then decide.
Where this comes from
Before Ready2Open, I delivered offices, lounges, shops and expat housing for global retail brands and consultancies operating far from home, across 30 countries in Africa, Europe, the US and Asia. Client names stay confidential.
That's founder experience, not a promise about your opening. Nobody can guarantee a date while a permit office, a landlord and your own board all have a say in it. What you can have is an early warning: which line moved, who owns it, and what it does to the date.
See where your opening stands
The Opening Score is 12 yes/no questions across the four stages of an opening, plus 4 about your situation. Two of them go straight to this article. Is one person on your side accountable for the date and the budget? Would the date slip if one key person were away for two weeks?
Your score appears on screen straight away. Leave your details and you get the full breakdown, with your two biggest gaps and the first move for each.
General information, not legal advice.