Nichols played an important role in London’s successful bid to host the Games, to sponsor the key venues, to manage the £2.6bn contingency and to shape the Olympic legacy. Our innovative work contributed to ensuring the Olympics were a success and an iconic celebration of British project management.

Challenge
The overall challenge of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was to win the bid for London then deliver the venues, infrastructure and legacy.  After assisting with the bid, Nichols was retained as part of the team to help the sponsor with the development of key venues, manage the £2.6bn contingency and help shape the legacy.

Experience
Our founder, Mike Nichols, acted as Interim Projects and Finance Director for Olympic Transport while the Olympic Delivery Authority was being formally established. When the decision to bid was announced, there was great concern that constraints of the transport network would seriously reduce London’s chances of being selected. We advised on mitigating these concerns and upgrading transport services.

Early in the planning stages of the games we undertook a strategic risk review of the transport systems, producing key recommendations for the Olympic Delivery Authority transport team and becoming an integral part of that team, responsible for all infrastructure and operational improvements.

We became a close and trusted advisor to the Sponsor for the 80,000 capacity Olympic Stadium, providing support in engaging with multiple stakeholders for Olympic and legacy operations and gaining the confidence of the Office of Government Commerce.

Benefits
Nichols helped manage the challenging change of focus from bidding to delivery, enabling the development of a clear vision. Following our strategic risk review of the transport systems, our recommendations ensured that transport became an asset and a positive factor in London’s selection and subsequent staging of the Games.

The innovative approach to sponsorship that we brought to the Olympic stadium, with its strong focus on risk and value management was subsequently adopted as best practice for other Olympic venues. In addition to the enormous success of winning the bid to host the Games, the London competition received widespread international acclaim. Those involved in managing construction and building the Olympic park were essential to this great outcome.