A Rs. 85 Cr revenue project-driven built environment business continued growing, but EBITDA declined from 11% to 6% over 3 years. Leadership initially believed the issue was execution inefficiency. The deeper review showed something else: -aggressive pricing approvals without structured thresholds -inconsistent variation order recovery -commercial exceptions approved outside defined controls -estimation assumptions changing during execution -high dependence on promoter-led deal decisions The result was predictable: Revenue scaled faster than commercial discipline. After introducing structured bid governance, pricing controls, authority thresholds, and commercial review mechanisms, margin visibility improved significantly before execution itself began. In many project businesses, margin erosion starts much earlier than site execution.