Tame's philosophy is simple: "Never one, never exclusive and never all." Mindful of the pressures of providing all of Jetstar's business intelligence data to a single third party, Tame has provided equal portions of the data flowing out from the airliner on a daily basis. Though one is clearly defined as the 'A team', the multisourcing agreement has given Tame the upper hand to negotiate more stringent terms, should the contract not be met. "Both suppliers know that if they're not living up to cost, quality and delivery expectations I have the option to reduce the work I give them," he says.

Paramount to Tame's handling of vendor relationships is his focus on the exit strategy in every contract, an aspect McGregor and Jew are also quick to urge.

"This goes to the idea of developing a centralised repository of learning on the project," Jew says. "That way, if things go badly, you do actually have enough information to exit that vendor and move to a preferred vendor."

Ensuring an exit strategy is, of course, something that must be handled carefully. While contractual negotiations between client and vendor are clearly of a business-like nature, both McGregor and Jew have seen numerous examples globally of communication breakdowns, emotional upsets and ultimately human mistakes that can bring multi-million-dollar projects crashing down.