“If the customer is not satisfied, he may not want to pay for our efforts. If he is not successful, he cannot pay. If he is not more successful than he already was, why should he [pay]?”
On the other hand, most risk managers are pessimistic; they expose unreliability in the estimates. There is a natural disconnect here.
If you are proposing sole source, you can spread a risk premium among your work package estimates; if you are bidding competitively, can offer the risk premium as an optional insurance package. The customer may not buy it, but the customer will nonetheless be exposed to your risk assessments and may well give you "points" for foresight.
Either way, it's tricky territory.
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