The accompanying tables show the top 10 major upcoming industrial and water treatment construction projects in Canada. They are all in the planning stage and are mainly new projects, but may also involve additions and/or alterations.
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The accompanying tables show the top 10 major upcoming medical and educational construction projects in the U.S. They are all in the planning stage and are mainly new projects, but may also involve additions and/or alterations.
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https://www.cmcconstruction.net/?p=390
As the U.S. works to bounce back from the pandemic, top construction companies are helping lead the way to recovery. Across the industry, you can feel the momentum in resilience, creativity, and the human spirit for problem-solving.
While spending has seen fluctuation lately, it’s expected to rise over the next several years. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, national construction spending is expected to exceed $1.55 trillion in 2021. That’s a 7.5% increase from 2020. Of that $1.55 trillion, $1.2 trillion is expected to go to the private sector, with much of the remaining funds addressing public needs. With the passing of a major Infrastructure Deal, official construction spending estimates may change. The deal is expected to generate about two million jobs per year, for the next ten years, with an emphasis on America’s physical infrastructure.
So, who are the largest construction companies leading the way? We’ve created a SlideShare of the top 10 construction companies in the U.S. to answer that exact question. Our list is composed of companies ranking on ENR’s Top 400 Contractors list. On the SlideShare you’ll find information about each company’s location, revenue, employees and year founded. Flip through below, then continue reading to discover insights about how a few of these top companies, and more, tackle some of the most common construction challenges.
Here are the top 10 construction companies in the United States as listed above in our SlideShare.
Of course, with opportunity comes new obstacles. If you’re adept in problem solving, the following obstacles are exciting challenges that can give you a competitive edge if tactfully approached. For a better understanding of how you can approach three very common challenges in construction, we’ve provided examples of how top firms have succeeded in solving these problems.
As technology improves, expectations rise as well. Highly technical projects require significant resource planning, forecasting, and attention to detail. Add in tight turnaround times and the obstacles only increase. Gilbane Building Company, ranked #11 on 2021’s ENR400, is one of the construction companies tackling challenges like this one head-on.
The Rhode Island-based firm constructed a state-of-the-art engineering lab and academic facility for students at the Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT) in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. This project was WIT’s first new academic building in over 40 years.
Gilbane was brought in to construct the new four-story, 78,000-square-foot academic building for engineering innovation and sciences. They were on a short, 15-month schedule. In order to meet the tight turnaround and represent the polytechnic university’s focus on innovation, the firm leaned on cutting-edge technologies and processes. Specifically, Gilbane leveraged prefabrication, design-assisted preconstruction processes, and virtual reality (VR) to meet the deadline and high-tech requirements.
Speaking to prefabrication as one of those crucial pieces to finishing on time, John Myers, Gilbane’s director of visual design and construction for New England says, “Off-site fabrication for us, from a safety standpoint, from a schedule standpoint, from the standpoint of being able to do things in parallel instead of in sequence, those are the things that make Gilbane successful.” For a deeper dive on this this impressive, yet challenging project, we recommend you read the full story here.
In the spirit of higher education, Gilbane also created a “living” classroom out of the project. It allowed WIT students to learn the most current and advanced construction methods as Gilbane went through the building process. Students got hands-on experience with each step of the project in real-time.
We’ve all heard the adage: “No one likes change.” It’s common for firms to face resistance to new technology and innovations. Usually, the resistance is not due to an individual’s resistance—it’s an organizational challenge. Improving structure and processes can be slow when the productivity and profit gains haven’t been fully understood by decision-makers. The truth is that technology proves to be an ally over and over again. We look at how two leading firms responded to different scenarios related to the need for new technology in preconstruction.
Multinational construction and development company, Skanska, ranked #9 on the 2021 ENR400, encountered some pushback from clients when moving from 2D to 3D modeling. The company decided to switch to 3D modeling for quantity takeoff to save time and money on projects.
The Skanska team has found that the best way to reassure hesitant clients is to provide proof of 3D modeling’s value. Kelsey Stein, National Preconstruction Technology Manager at Skanska explains, “By having better standards that we can give to the design team, it’s helped us perform a closer estimation while saving time and money on our projects.”
The 3D takeoff uncovered missing quantities that accounted for a 28% discrepancy….saving a tremendous amount of money that would have been lost under the traditional 2D method.
To provide greater context for clients, Skanska compared the results of a traditional 2D takeoff and a 3D takeoff using Assemble on the same project. The 3D takeoff uncovered missing quantities that accounted for a 28% discrepancy in the curtain wall scope. As a result, the firm saved a tremendous amount of money that would have been lost under the traditional 2D method.
PCL, a construction company coming in at #14 on the 2021 ENR400, found themselves needing to create easy-to-use technology for their preconstruction managers—so they did just that.
Breaking out the challenge, PCL’s estimators and managers were adept at reviewing 2D drawings and managing the preconstruction process. However, the review of 2D drawings can be a very manual process and slow down workflows. This created inefficiencies. On top of that, preconstruction managers were regularly receiving more 3D models from the design team as they moved to digitizing their workflows.
Knowing they had to improve access to insights that 2D drawings couldn’t provide without significant effort, PCL created a multidisciplinary team to evaluate and identify their priority project KPIs. They determined which ones would be most effective at tracking design progress in real time and got to work building their own data management and interpretation tools.
“Predictability is the name of the game when it comes to construction. If we can better track the progress of design, then there will be little-to-no surprises when we receive milestone design deliverables.” -Nick Kurth, PCL Construction Enterprises Inc.
Their team can now easily access critical, real time project progress data through Autodesk Assemble, Autodesk Revit and a Power BI dashboard. This technology enables them to better interpret data and generate cost-effective designs with the most efficient use of materials.
Nick Kurth, VDC Manager at PCL Construction Enterprises Inc, shares why the dashboard was so critical, “Predictability is the name of the game when it comes to construction. If we can better track the progress of design, then there will be little-to-no surprises when we receive milestone design deliverables. This dashboard solution is another means for us to drive lean principles around target value design. It’s also essential to have transparency between our design team and our precon team, and that’s a key part of what this provides.”
As a Fortune 500 firm and ranked #8 on the 2021 ENR400, AECOM is used to partnering with clients in the public and private sectors to solve complex construction challenges. The premier infrastructure firm is known for its construction and design-build approach, which leads to optimized collaboration, productivity, and efficiency. Under the design-build construction delivery model, contractors, designers, and owners collaborate as a team to meet owner expectations.
AECOM America’s BIM Director, Russ Dalton, is responsible for helping the teams behind the firm’s construction and design-build approach win new business. He then supports them in making sure the projects are executed effectively.
Technology is essential for helping Russ do just that. His team, and AECOM as a firm, has embraced BIM 360 to achieve geometric certainty and cost certainty. They’re now moving toward operational certainty. Through their commitment to achieving certainty, and the technology that enables it, AECOM has carved out a competitive advantage.
“We’ve witnessed a 32% increase in productivity with this methodology.” -Russ Dalton, AECOM America
AECOM’s Barclays Center Arena project was a testament to the effectiveness of how they use BIM 360. Russ shares, “We looked at [this project] through predictable lenses to make sure that in the construction process it could be completed with geometric certainty and cost certainty.”
The $450 million project was not only finished early but came in under budget due to AECOM’s commitment to BIM 360. Russ says that the use of BIM 360 generated “$4.5 million in cost savings” on the project. He goes on to add, “We’ve witnessed a 32% increase in productivity with this methodology.”
These leading construction companies are showing the industry, and the nation, what’s possible on the road ahead. They’re also highlighting that it takes innovation, persistence, and the right tools to not only survive, but thrive in the face of challenge. Remember, obstacles are opportunities and the best days are ahead for our industry. Technology is helping us get there.
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Construction accounting software is a must-have, but may seem daunting to implement new solutions if your accounting technology hasn’t kept up with the complexities of your growing business. Managing the myriad of accounting activities across an entire construction business, or at any phase of an individual project, you’re going to want access to the most accurate, real-time numbers possible.
No stranger to disruption, the construction industry is experiencing higher levels of digitization than ever before. The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by as much as seven years according to some experts. Technical tools and solutions are making some of the most complicated and manual practices in construction a concern of the past.
ƒThat includes accounting. Sure, accounting may have a bit of a reputation for being mundane. But the latest innovations in construction project management software provide an exciting level of financial clarity—especially useful to connect project finances to accounting decision-makers. If you’re exploring options to make construction accounting more efficient and accurate, you’ll find plenty of helpful information on choosing the right software below.
At its most basic level, accounting helps businesses understand and capture accounting activities. It’s essential to business administration, management and financial reporting. Sometimes referred to as the “language of business,” accounting personnel document an organization’s accounting activities to accurately measure financial performance. This information is then communicated to owners, investors, creditors, and regulators. It will also dictate who you do business with and how.
Construction accounting takes into consideration the challenges that come along with the construction business. This includes tracking revenue, job costing, payroll, and managing several contracts and project risks simultaneously. Because the building process is so uniquely complex, accounting practices must be adapted to the construction industry.
Let’s look at what makes construction accounting different from most other businesses.
The nature of construction is quite different from your average business. Outside of a major project roadblock, all aspects of a construction project are moving forward simultaneously. Instead of operating from a fixed location with a fixed set of products or services, construction projects rely on a range of locations, materials, and services. Everyone and everything tends to always be on the go. As a result, accurately managing milestones and finances throughout the life of a project—whether payables or receivables—can be challenging.
Firms typically work on multiple projects at a time. Instead of having one transaction, organizations may have multiple transactions occurring simultaneously across several project partners. Each project partner likely has their own set of timelines and milestones that impact accounting. Furthermore, it can take time to actually receive payment for services rendered. Some firms use project-based accounting. In this practice, each project functions as its own entity with profits and losses.
Another consideration for construction accounting is long-term contracts. It’s not uncommon for projects to take years to finish. In these scenarios, expenses and revenue may occur at different times than had been originally planned. Knowing the implications of when and how to accrue income and expenses across multi-year projects is an art in itself.
Businesses often create categories and cost codes to track sales. There are often multiple vendors on projects in construction, whether that’s to account for materials or services, there are often tens, if not hundreds, of billable line items on any given job. Traditional accounting practices leave a lot of room for error and confusion. Purpose-built construction accounting software can help to automate this process and meet the need for multiple service or product categories. Smarter categorization enables a much cleaner look at overall business performance. This is made especially easy with dedicated construction accounting software.
Every construction job involves direct and indirect costs that cross multiple categories. To make things even more complex, items that you might consider overhead expenses are often actually costs of goods sold because they are connected to a client project. Overhead costs can fluctuate month to month based on workers’ compensation, subcontractors, insurance, training, and more.
The complexity of construction accounting extends to calculating how much a project will actually cost the firm. That’s where job costing comes into play. This calculation method divides the project into specific tasks. That way, you can track expenses to the various tasks of a project. It provides greater visibility into which projects, activities, and materials are generating the most costs.
With job costing, you can separate the project into the main phases and then sort scopes of work into each phase. Organizations can then create unique construction cost codes to track the expenses. You may choose to create a handful of codes or multiple codes for a more granular view. After developing the codes, you can generally divide them into five categories: labor, materials, subcontracts, equipment, and overhead.
How much does your crew cost you? That’s what the labor categories in job costing can help you answer. To find this number for each project, start by calculating how much it costs per day to have your crew. This is likely to be your high level hires like general contractors, who you’ll interface with regularly. Don’t forget to include insurance, worker’s compensation, and taxes into the figure. You can then multiply the number of days you’ll have the crew on the project.
Be sure to include a buffer for unforeseen labor costs in your estimates. Project progress is rarely linear. You’ll also want to parse out subcontractor costs with the help of your general contractors. More on that below.
These costs can be both direct and indirect. For example, direct material costs can include items like concrete and steel. It’s often easier to link these items to a specific project. Indirect material costs include things like nails and caulking. You may also apply a margin for delivery and cleanup. It’s important to think of the life of a material, and any complimentary materials, when costing your project.
General contractors are enlisted to manage construction activities and schedules, but are also instrumental in minimizing risks and issuing subcontracts. Each subcontract encapsulates costs for a general contractor and revenue to a subcontractor for specific scopes of work on a construction project. Managing subcontractor payment applications is fundamental to construction accounting, and also drives the upstream receivables, as subcontractor costs translate into general contractor revenue.
Depending on whether or not your contracted labor brings equipment to the table, you may want to cost this out separately. At which point, identify your equipment supplier rates and multiply by the estimated length of the project or time needed with that particular asset. It’s possible that equipment needs will span multiple projects.
If your contracted labor does bring equipment to the table, work with them to identify expected costs for a clear picture of how your equipment impacts accounting activities over the life of a project.
A lot of work goes on behind the scenes so you can’t forget to include the cost of doing business. That means you’ll need to measure accounting activities that go beyond the above mentioned categories. In other words, don’t forget about overhead when job costing. Some things to consider including would be full-time staff, office rentals, administration, and depreciation of equipment.
Revenue recognition is the accounting of revenue when certain conditions are met on a project. Certain governing bodies issue revenue recognition standards to disseminate accounting best practices.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) updated reporting standards for revenue recognition from contracts with customers in 2014. This standard is known as Accounting Standards Codification Topic 606 (ASC 606), or more simply, the new standard. Prior to the new standard, many organizations relied on the percentage-of-completion method and completed-contract method.
According to FASB, the intent for the latest guidance is to “report useful information to users of financial statements about the nature, timing, and uncertainty of revenue from contracts with customers.”
FASB has adopted a principle-based revenue recognition approach. With this approach, revenue is recognized according to two key factors. First, the contractor must meet performance obligations. Second, the control of goods or services must be transferred to the customer. This transfer can take place at a particular point in time or over a period of time.
To comply with revenue recognition standards, or ASC 606, be sure to follow these five steps:
Dedicated construction accounting software solutions can help to optimize processes and automate manual tasks. As you consider ways to improve your construction accounting processes, keep these leading solutions in mind.
QuickBooks Online (Intuit): This cloud-based financial management software helps you manage your finances efficiently and gives you time back in your day. Create estimates, build invoices, track sales, monitor cash flow, and manage your customers as well as suppliers from one intuitive platform. Oftentimes, QuickBooks Online will be integrated with a project management platform to track costs and provide an operations team with the tools they need to control documents and manage budgets.
Morpheus: Connect any ERP to Autodesk Build’s leading budget and cost management solution for a truly integrated financial environment. No more double entry, manual errors or missed information. You gain full transparency from the field to the office on job costs. Trusted for over 20 years by the ENR 400.
DataStreet: DataStreet was built to eliminate time and material tag paperwork and reduce the amount of time spent on change order processing. The cloud-based project management platform increases transparency between your office and field teams. All of the data is stored in the cloud for easy access; use project-specific settings to customize your workflows and experience.
Rhumbix: Want to streamline your field operations? Rhumbix can do just that through easy capture of time and materials changes and construction labor costs. You’ll get all the data you need to make smart decisions about labor cost management, risk management, and safety, and they can integrate directly with accounting.
Sage: Autodesk Construction Cloud partners have built dynamic integrations between Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate and Autodesk Build, uniting accounting, project management, and field collaboration. Manage cost-related activities, streamline workflows, and connect data for greater real-time visibility into your project’s financial health.
As you can see, there’s a lot of nuances specific to construction accounting. The software solutions that exist are getting better at addressing these complexities every single day.
With the right construction accounting software, accurately job costing, tracking timelines, and adhering to the revenue recognition standards is much easier. It puts owners and contractors on the same page throughout the life of a project. Plus, the standardized approach makes tracking company-wide finances across all projects a much less daunting task.
The post A Practical Guide to Construction Accounting Software appeared first on Digital Builder.
Rising materials prices and the Covid pandemic have been blamed for the collapse of Wolverhampton based contractor Arthur M. Griffiths & Son Limited.
The firm – which can trace its roots back to 1899 – was placed in the hands of joint administrators Conrad Beighton and David Griffiths of Leonard Curtis Business Rescue & Recovery last Friday.
On appointment, 44 employees were made redundant and Leonard Curtis are now taking steps for an orderly wind-down of the company and to ensure that maximum realisations are achieved for the benefit of creditors.
The administrators said: “The company had encountered continuous, ongoing difficulties within the construction industry, as a result of the ongoing pandemic and issues associated with Brexit.
“Current volatility in availability and prices of construction materials made the completion of existing contracts on site and any new contracts in the near future unprofitable and therefore unviable.
“Ongoing COVID risks have also further complicated matters, and caused delays in completion of projects.”
Latest accounts for the company for the year to March 31 2020 show the firm made a pre-tax profit of £244,000 from a turnover of £30m.
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Picture this: there’s a group of people working on a major presentation and each person is assigned their own section or chapter. Everyone has a general idea of what the presentation is about, so team members decide to tackle their sections separately and plan to get together to combine their work.
But problems arise when the team meets to put together their chapters. While each person did well with their respective assignments, the finished presentation lacks cohesiveness. And because some members were unaware of certain changes and updates, the presentation was filled with inaccurate information.
It’s quite obvious where the team went wrong. Each member was assigned their own “thing” and they ran off to execute without collaborating with each other.
Instead of this approach, the group should’ve synced and communicated more frequently with each other. They should’ve connected their workflows and established a single source of truth, so that everyone was working with the same information.
Doing so would have prevented the headaches of having to edit and reconstruct the presentation.
The above scenario may be a bit simplistic, but it illustrates what could happen if workflows aren’t integrated. This problem is prevalent in the construction industry. Too often, teams suffer from miscommunication, data loss, and mistakes due to a disconnect with their processes and systems.
The key to avoiding all that? Three words: connected construction workflows.
In this post, we’ll go over the value of integrated workflows in construction and shed light on how you can put them into practice.
To understand connected construction workflows, let’s back up a bit and discuss what a workflow is to begin with. According to Gennpact, a workflow “is the definition, execution and automation of business processes where tasks, information or documents are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.”
Workflows are used to coordinate tasks between people and keep information and systems in sync. They play a major role in executing tasks and bringing projects to life, which is why it’s important to optimize them.
One way to do that is to implement connected workflows. By keeping workflows integrated, data flows smoothly from one system to the next, thus ensuring smooth collaboration between all stakeholders.
The key attributes of connected workflows are:
Automation: Data and processes are automated. There’s no need for manual entry, and you can rest assured that information is automatically in sync across all your systems.
Integrated: Multiple systems are connected to each other, which means there are no silos or duplication. Teams enjoy a common data environment and are on the same page at all times.
Transparent: Connected workflows provide a single source of truth for data and information, thus supporting trust, transparency, and accountability in the team.
Now, let’s look at some of the key benefits of having connected construction workflows.
Increased efficiency. According to the Harvard Business Review, knowledge workers spend up to 50% of their time “hunting for data, identifying and correcting errors, and seeking confirmatory sources for data they do not trust.”
That’s a lot of wasted time and effort, and you can avoid all that by keeping your workflows connected. With integrated systems and automatic data flow, team members won’t have to spend time re-entering information, asking for clarification, or hunting down data. Instead, they can focus on execution and complete tasks more efficiently.
Reduced risk. When data entry and other processes are automated, you minimize human error and information loss. Data is kept accurate and secure, and it’s easy to retrieve the information you need to make important project decisions.
Detailed records. Connected workflows automatically capture records of activities, such as when new information is added or if any changes are made. Names, dates, and time stamps are recorded, making it easy to audit projects.
Improved collaboration. When workflows are connected, so are teams. Everyone has access to the same data and are able to communicate effectively, which streamlines collaboration.
Needless to say, more collaborative teams tend to work better. A survey by Salesforce found that 97% of respondents believe that a lack of alignment within teams has a direct impact on a project’s outcome. What’s more, 86% believe that lack of collaboration and ineffective communication lead to workplace failures.
So far we’ve discussed what connected workflows are and the benefits they offer to construction teams. Below we’ll shed light on the construction workflows that are most commonly disconnected, and how to fix them.
The bidding and qualification process is often disjointed, particularly when it comes to evaluating vendor risk. This is because risk managers are siloed from the estimating department and the information they need (i.e., company data, info on safety, financials, and insurance of subcontractors) live on separate platforms.
All that makes it difficult to analyze and manage risk.
You can fix this by integrating your prequalification and risk management software with your preconstruction software. This ensures that the information required by both estimators and risk managers are accessible through a tightly-integrated system.
When teams can view all the data they need in one place, they can search for subcontractor data, build lists, and assess risk much more quickly.
When done manually, bringing preconstruction data (e.g., plans, models, and estimates) to the field is a process that’s fraught with issues like lost data and wasted time. Information can slip through the cracks and as a result, project managers have to grapple with missing files and data.
Unfortunately, most of the tools used to manage these workflows are outdated and aren’t intuitive, so much of the process involves manual and inefficient work.
All that can be solved by integrating your preconstruction software with your construction management solution. By keeping these two systems together, you can ensure that any information created during the preconstruction phase stays intact when handed over to project managers in the field.
Quality and safety checklists often contain a long list of questions. The answers to those questions can either confirm everything is going according to plan or flag a problem that needs immediate attention.
If the checklists have no built in controls to require action depending on the answer to a question, the necessary follow up can be delayed or even completely missed. This can be avoided if teams set up their checklists to leverage controls such as conditional logic. This approach provides the ability to require a specific action depending on a specific answer.
Forms in Autodesk Build have this advanced capability — based on the answer someone in the field gives to a question, the form can be set up to require an action. For example, you can require the creation of an issue or suggest the attachment of a photo as proof. This way, project teams can ensure that every flagged problem gets addressed as soon as possible.
As project issues come up, it’s necessary to create RFIs and obtain information or clarifications to move the project forward.
The task isn’t very straightforward, though. When the process of surfacing issues is disconnected from RFI creation, data leaks and delays may occur. For instance, if a team member needs to set up an RFI regarding an issue they didn’t create, that RFI may end up missing important details.
To solve this, ensure that your projects management solutions are tightly integrated. Details about all issues should be readily available, so that anyone tasked with creating an RFI can do so without missing anything.
Integrated project management workflows also come in handy when they’re connected to meetings. By linking issues and RFIs to meeting minutes, you can make sure that they’re discussed during your team catch-ups.
And since all the data lives in one place, team attendees will be able to access the right information and engage in productive discussions. BIM 360 Meetings is a great solution for enabling these connected workflows.
“We use BIM 360 Meetings to document everything going on in our meetings. The tool is fluid and meeting-friendly. We can easily share a screen, pull up documents, and adjust a meeting agenda on the fly,” said John Weaver, Project Director at Charles Perry Partners, Inc. (CPPI).
“It’s also great that it’s linked to our project management module. We can easily access submittals and RFIs directly from meeting minutes.”
Inefficiencies around managing and implementing changes in construction projects can diminish your bottom line. When it comes to change management, poor communication and data sharing results in projects being delayed and over-budget, which can wreak havoc on your financials.
It’s important to understand and anticipate how changes would affect a project in order to manage them in the most cost-effective way possible.
One way to accomplish this is to integrate your RFI and potential change order (PCO) workflows. Ideally, any RFI information you have will be synced with the PCO (and vice versa) so the two components have a bi-directional relationship.
This setup saves you time from having to double-handle data. Details like status information are synced and accessible, so stakeholders can always get the latest information.
Ideally, your solution should have user permission features that enable or restrict access to data based on people’s roles. Cost information is sensitive, afterall, and it’s important to keep that data secure.
Managing and tracking construction assets is essential in any construction project. Having a solid handle on moveable equipment, building materials, and other assets will ensure that the necessary components are installed and projects are delivered successfully.
As such, it’s important to streamline your processes around asset tracking. Arm your teams with construction management technology that has built-in asset tracking features, so stakeholders can view and monitor the lifespan of your assets. The solution should also enable users to store and access any asset-related documentation (e.g., warranty documents, cut-sheets, etc.).
You should connect your asset management workflows to checklists and issues, to streamline quality assurance as well as the commissioning process. When assets and issues are tracked and viewable in one place, it’s a lot easier to conduct inspections and ensure that issues are resolved. Commissioning agents can create checklists and view those items alongside the right information, enabling them to quickly verify that the assets have been delivered.
As the digital age of construction continues to progress, connected construction workflows are going to be more important than ever. These days, it’s simply too expensive and inefficient to wrangle siloed systems and procedures. The pressure to deliver projects efficiently, on-time, and within budget continues to grow, and the best way to keep up is to tighten up your workflows and the technologies that power them.
The post Why Connected Construction Workflows Power Better Building appeared first on Digital Builder.
Equans, the new name for Engie’s services-led operations, has named former Vinci UK MD Jean-Philippe Loiseau as the new chief of its UK & Ireland business.
Loiseau will join in September and succeeds current CEO Nicola Lovett, who leaves the £2bn turnover UK business to pursue new challenges outside of the group.
He has previously led a number of Vinci’s Group’s European subsidiaries, including Vinci’s FM and construction businesses in the UK.
He also managed Antea, an independent environmental services company for ten years.
Jérôme Stubler, Equans CEO, said: “I would like to thank Nicola for the part she has played in the establishment and launch of our new business and for the great dedication and leadership she has shown throughout her successful career with Engie.
“The UK is an important market for Equans and I am pleased to welcome Jean-Philippe, who is a strong, experienced leader with the qualities to implement the next phase of growth for our UK & Ireland business, while continuing to deliver high performance outcomes for our customers”.
Last month, Engie announced the creation of Equans, bringing together its global service activities under a new brand, creating a market leader in the sector with 74,000 employees and revenues of 12 bn euros.
In the UK & Ireland, all of Engie’s activity in technical services, facilities management, construction and regeneration and and renewables, now come under the Equans brand.
Equans UK & Ireland employs 13,500 people – a significant part of the overall new global operation.
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As the world continues to open back up, we’re starting to see more signs of recovery in the construction industry. Research from Dodge Data & Analytics and Autodesk shows that bidding activity has been increasing since the start of the year. In fact, bidding activity in BuildingConnected was up 36% in January 2021, compared to a three-month pre-pandemic average.
This is great news overall, and as a contractor, you can capitalize on these opportunities by optimizing your systems to keep up with the increasing number of bids coming your way.
The best way to do that is to eliminate cumbersome tools like spreadsheets.
Spreadsheets are useful for tracking basic information but they’re not ideal for higher level processes and tasks such as bid management.
Since the bidding process requires you to manually enter and track numerous bits of info, putting everything in a spreadsheet can get messy and confusing. This could lead to missed bids and loss of potential work.
What’s more, collaboration can be a pain with spreadsheets. You can’t share files in a centralized manner, so people typically end up emailing each other different versions of the file, resulting in issues with version history and conflict between updates.
Another problem with using spreadsheets? It’s much more difficult to analyze data. While they can display raw information in neat rows and columns, extracting useful insights from spreadsheets is largely a manual process.
All this to say that spreadsheets aren’t great for managing bids and they’re certainly not going to help you win more work.
If you’re still using spreadsheets, it’s high time to replace them with a centralized bidding management system. The right solution can streamline the bidding process and make collaboration easier, ultimately helping you win more bids.
Our recent guide discusses how a centralized bid management system can benefit subcontractors. Download it for free.
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Read on to explore some of the key insights you’ll find in the guide.
A centralized bid management system refers to a single platform on which you can centrally manage the entire bidding process. It’s an excellent solution for contractors, because it enables you to track and handle all your bids from one place, which can help you increase your win rates and revenues.
Case in point: Bowman Flooring Contractor, a Georgia-based specialty contractor increased its win rate by 25% and revenue by $9 million when the company adopted a new bid management system.
The team at Bowman used to rely on Excel and emails to manage bids, and they decided to implement bid management technology to improve their processes.
In doing so, Bowman was able to be more organized and keep all the necessary bidding information in one place. The new software made it easy for teams to track and assign bids and they were able to prioritize jobs that were more likely to win. What’s more, they could pull up past project estimates, which led to better estimates on current projects.
“Our new software totally changed the way we do business,” said Mike Adams, Senior Project Manager at Bowman Flooring Contractor.
We’ve discussed the general benefits of a centralized bid management system, now let’s take a look at the specific advantages of having one.
Having a centralized system that’s accessible to multiple team members reduces the need for double entry and other manual tasks. Unlike using spreadsheets, which involves manually entering data, a centralized system for bid management lets everyone work on the same information at any given time.
As a result, subcontractors can minimize errors, confusion, and tedious work like reviewing and re-entering data.
Juggling multiple bids can be a nightmare when you’re using spreadsheets and other manual methods. These cumbersome tools can’t centrally store data, so it’s easy for information to slip through the cracks.
When you have a centralized bid management system, you can easily get a bird’s eye view of the entire bid process. You’ll also have a single source of truth when it comes to the status of all your bids and invites, so you’ll never miss an opportunity again.
A centralized bid management system allows teams to work together without a hitch. Since information is stored and accessed in the cloud, team members can collaborate in real-time and everyone can always get their hands on the most updated information. This eliminates confusion and miscommunication, which leads to a smoother bid management process.
A centralized bid management system also improves the process of bidding on and bidding out. When soliciting bids from other subcontractors, the information they submit feeds directly into the bid, so there’s no need to re-enter the same info.
Having the ability to manage both bids in and bids out from a centralized platform paves the way for more competitive final bids. You can track proposals in one place and make data-driven decisions before submitting your bid.
To win more bids in today’s increasingly competitive market, you need all the help you can get. A centralized bid management system enables you to stay organized, save time, and understand your bids better, so you can win more projects and continue to grow.
Download our free ebook to learn how a centralized bid management system can help you improve your business.
The post Goodbye, Spreadsheets: Win More Work with Centralized Bid Management appeared first on Digital Builder.
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Taylor Wimpey is on course to post an operating profit of £820m this year as the house builder delivered a record first half performance.
The firm completed 7,303 homes in the six months to July 4 2021 compared to 2,771 last year as pre-tax profit recovered to £287.5m from a £39.8m loss on revenue up to 2,196.3m from £754.6m.
Pete Redfern, Chief Executive,said: “We have delivered a record first half performance and a strong operating profit margin performance of 19.3%, which reflects tight cost discipline as well as higher completions in the period.
“Our focus remains on driving further improvement in our operating profit margin and accelerated outlet-driven volume growth from 2023.
“Backed by last year’s equity raise we stepped up our activity in the land market before competition returned and we successfully increased our land pipeline with high-quality sites that will deliver a strong financial performance.
“We are progressing this land through the planning stages as expected, providing excellent momentum for growth, enhanced returns for our stakeholders and increased numbers of new homes.
“We have a clear purpose to deliver high-quality homes and create thriving communities and a strategy to ensure the long term sustainability of the business.
“We now expect to deliver 2021 full year Group operating profit of c.£820 million, above the top end of consensus, with UK completions (excluding joint ventures) expected to be towards the upper end of our guidance range of 13,200 to 14,000.”
Taylor Wimpey is now targeting profit margins of 22% and added “looking further ahead, we have excellent momentum going into the medium term and are well positioned for accelerated volume growth from 2023.”
The firm has set aside £165m for fire safety cladding. It said: “Where we own the buildings, we are undertaking assessments on the buildings and where works are required, we are procuring those works. Where a third party owns the building and we have been contacted by the freeholder or management company we are engaging with them in relation to the assessment process.”
Taylor Wimpey said rising house prices were offsetting increases in materials.
It said: “Whilst there is pressure on pricing and supply chains for certain materials such as timber and steel owing to strong global demand, healthy increases in house prices are fully offsetting build cost inflation.
“Our central procurement team and logistics business continues to work closely with our supply chain to understand and track the origins of our components and subcomponents and stocking levels within the supply chain. This helps provide visibility of our materials supply, identifying and pre-empting potential bottlenecks.”
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