Bargaining statistics vs. NC Singapore

• Partition (gypsum board, standard): Creative Touch Design's rate held flat at $4.50/sqft ($48.44/m²) across every 2017 job and the final invoice. NC Singapore's current quote is $103.50/m² — 2.14× higher. Even allowing for ~9 years of inflation and NC's 4.5m-high double-sided spec vs. CTD's standard height, this is the single biggest lever to push on.
• 13A double socket: CTD 2017–2020 held at $75.00/point (exposed conduit, unchanged for 3 years). NC's 2×13A socket is $166.75/point — 2.22× higher. Some of that gap is concealed/trunked wiring (pricier than exposed) — worth asking NC to itemise how much is labour vs. material to see if it holds up.
• Data point — corrected, and it favours NC: CTD's Cat5 rate ($70/point) was the wrong comparison (different cable spec, 2017). Acuutech — Elitez's own IT/network contractor — quoted actual Cat6 data points at $130.00/point in 2021, confirmed twice. But that's the wall end only: add their 1U patch panel ($240, amortised) and patch cords ($6-12 each), and a same-size 5-6 point job comes to ~$188-190/point all-in — higher than NC's $149.50/point bundled rate, even before NC's much larger 111-point job gets any economies of scale. This one isn't a lever — NC's data point pricing looks fair, possibly good.
• Lighting is a mixed picture, not a clean win either way: CTD's wiring-point-plus-fixture-install combos ranged ~$75–170/point depending on fixture type (exit/emergency fixtures pushed the top end up). NC's bundled fixture+install rates ($69–132.25/point) actually sit within or below several of those — don't assume lighting is where NC is padding the quote.
• Flooring: Tee Up's 2017 click-vinyl was $3.65/sqft ($39.29/m²) and laminate $2.80/sqft ($30.14/m²), vs. NC's carpet tile at $61.88/m² ($5.75/sqft). Different product category (carpet vs. vinyl/laminate), so not strictly apples-to-apples — but worth asking whether carpet is required everywhere or vinyl/laminate could substitute in back-of-house areas.
• Glass — remarkably solid data: CTD's 12mm frameless tempered glass fixed panel rate is exactly $11.40/sqft ($122.71/m²), confirmed across 6 separate line items spanning the original 2017 quote and the final invoice months later — about as reliable as historical data gets. NC's equivalent fixed-glass items (D.3.2/3.4/3.5) work out to ~$75/sqft. That's a large gap, but NC's price also buys powder-coated aluminium framing, a post and steel frame support that CTD's frameless panels never included — ask NC to itemise glass vs. framing/steel separately before assuming the whole gap is margin. Their glass doors (top-spring hinge, not a full aluminium frame) ran $24–31/sqft historically, vs. NC's aluminium-framed swing door at ~$95/sqft — same framing caveat applies.
• Supervision & design — the sharpest contrast in the whole dataset: CTD bundled design consultation, 3D drawings, colour/material selection, site co-ordination and supervision as FOC on every single job, 2017 through 2021. NC's quote charges $8,000 (supervision/scaffolding/hoisting/safety) plus a second $4,500 supervision line under the AC section, plus $575 for documentation & drawings — $13,075 total for things CTD never charged for. Your own margin note on the printed quote ("reduce to $3,000, inclusive of supervision for whole project") already points at this — the data backs it up.
• Custom carpentry, per sqft — corrected categorisation: the earlier $9.74–$60/sqft range was blending genuinely different construction types. Split properly: desk tabletops (small individual units) ran $52.00–$60.00/sqft — and the two data points for the identical item (2017 vs. 2020) are only 15% apart, the tightest same-category match in this whole dataset; a large continuous counter top was $9.74/sqft (cheaper per sqft simply because one big surface has less edge/joinery per area than several small desks); a meeting table was $45.71/sqft; and a cabinet's vertical face (elevation, not a tabletop) was $27.27/sqft — a different measurement basis entirely. None of these is a genuine match for NC's D.1.5 plywood wall panel ($14.42/sqft) — CTD's carpentry data is all furniture, never wall/panel cladding — so that item should be treated as unbenchmarked rather than compared to any single figure from this range.
• Hacking/demolition: matching each 2017 hacked wall to its own rebuild dimensions elsewhere in the same quote gives an implied ~$5.5–6.00/sqft demolition rate, holding steady into the 2020 job ($4.91/sqft). NC bundles all dismantling (ceiling, 2× glass doors, sliding doors, electrical disconnection, haulage) into one ~$2,600–3,000 lump sum for the whole section — likely reasonable given it covers more scope than any single historical line, not a place to push.
• Insurance, masonry & plumbing: no usable historical rate. Insurance was never itemised — CTD's terms explicitly excluded it ("pay by owner if requested by management"), so NC's $2,000 lump sum is the only figure on the table. Masonry was priced per unexplained "set" (~$300/set), not sqft. Plumbing has no equivalent in NC's quote at all (command-centre fit-out, no sanitary scope) — these three are reference-only, not negotiating ammunition.