All posts in Construction

The construction industry has been hit hard by the economic recession. Construction has been one of the fastest growing and lucrative businesses in the world. However, in 2007 the bubble started to burst and by the middle of 2008, many house builders were in serious trouble. Now we see some light at the end of the tunnel but in order to capitalise on the growing number of opportunities, many are rediscovering the essentials of construction marketing to build a solid foundation for future growth. Knowing how to procure work in a changing economic climate through an understanding of sound business development principles and construction marketing strategies is key to the future of the industry.

Construction marketing has had a bad press. This has largely been due to a misunderstanding of what modern marketing is all about. Gone are the days of the fancy sales talk, over promising, irrelevant jargon and hype. These days marketing is all about building relationships, making the right connections, offering genuine solutions and forging collaborative partnerships. In order for effective construction marketing to take place, the right person needs to be appointed.

Most Managing Director’s of smaller construction companies spend a lot of time on public relations exercises for which they may not feel cut out! They have enough on their hands managing the business. So someone to concentrate on marketing, client relations and business development is crucial.

Construction Marketing is a specialised area and should be an essential ingredient in your business plan if you want to expand and take on the new challenges of a changing industry. Of course there are marketing techniques and general principles that work in any industry, but whoever does your marketing, needs to know the business.

The construction industry is evolving and changing with new demands and challenges to be faced. This will inevitably mean that we live in a climate of change. Any marketing person worth their fee, will stay ahead of the game and spend time focussing on key areas of development.

Although the opportunities in the construction business are growing rapidly with every government led initiative, the competition for work is getting more intense – especially with the growing emphasis on partnering and frameworks. If your company is to stay in the front line of business growth, you need a Marketing and Promotions Budget and the right person to take things forward.
There are eight essential characteristics you should look for in a marketing person. This may be a special appointment or someone within your company who has the skills and abilities to be at the front end of your marketing and business promotion efforts.
They need to be:
1. A people person. It is essential to have an open personality that connects easily with others and is able to understand how human psychology works. Knowing how people tick, what their key motivators are and what is likely to grab their attention in terms of that new business proposal, is an essential characteristic.

2. An excellent communicator. It’s no good being at the front line of business development if you can’t articulate well. This is more than picking up the telephone. Creativity is essential if your prospect is to be won. So keeping accurate records of every conversation and a knowledge of the company you are targeting is crucial together with relevant personal details of the target. For instance, knowing birthdays, important anniversaries, hobbies and interests can enable a good communicator to respond appropriately. Sending a personalised birthday or Christmas card can be a powerful way of building relationships which form the foundation for business opportunity.

3. Un-flappable! The marketing person will encounter a number of hurdles on a daily basis. The pressure of meeting Key Performance Indicators set by the management can create undue stress for instance. Then there is the unpleasant business of rejection, which is inevitable when targeting new prospects. Sometimes in a busy office environment, especially in the construction industry which often doesn’t rate the marketing role, there can be tensions and a conflict in perceived priorities. The marketing person needs to hold firm in times of uncertainty, believe in the company and it’s products and services and have a determination to grow that sales pipeline.

4. Focussed on the big picture. Getting the next tender through the door and securing that letter of intent is only part of the picture. The marketing person will always be thinking ahead, three to six months down the line, to ensure that all important sales pipeline is healthy. Especially in construction, where the lead in time from tender to job on site can often take months.

5. Highly motivated and a motivator of others. Marketing people need to be self starters. People who see what needs to be done and then just get on with it. They need to be people with initiative and drive and have the ability to take others with them.

6. Well informed. The problem faced by the construction industry in terms of business development is that there have been few specialists in this area. So the danger of appointing a marketing consultant with no real knowledge of the industry has been a real one. At the very least the marketing person needs to have a working knowledge of the industry if not a background in construction.

7. Creative, flexible AND organised! A disorganised marketer is doomed to failure. So although creative and flexible approach is essential, accurate records should be kept using an efficient Customer Relations Management System.

8. Well presented! First impressions do count! They way the marketer presents themselves is crucial. By all means, they can be modern and trendy, but they do need to wear a suite and tie!

So best of luck in finding the right person to carry your business forward! Be careful who you appoint and then give them the resources they need to do their job.

Now, what, to you is the real benefit of looking for an online construction site safety plan? If you are looking for one for its proper use, you will be after one which puts the safety of your workforce to the fore. Sadly, many construction site safety plans are built with simple ease in mind. This is a terrifying thought, especially since we in the construction industry have so many fatalities.

Any good construction site safety plan should have, as its first and only priority, your workforces safety in mind. The goal of making the site managers life a little easier is one which too often gets involved in the search for a plan. Similarly, budgeting is something that factors in quite heavily, when really it shouldnt at all. The trouble is that both the ease of the site managers life, and the safety of the workforce can all be encompassed in one fell swoop, even at lower costing brackets.

What makes a good construction site safety plan, then? At its heart, it should be suitable for the management of all construction work. This word suitable is important here. Remember, this is the most important document in your safety planning, and unless it is utterly comprehensive, it is useless.

It should also aid the compliance with health and safety legislation. Sure, while this is an important element of the document, its by no means the be all. Even if it highlights the compliance with regulatory bodies, this in no way means that it it wholly suitable. A good test for this is whether you can buy one, and it still be applicable to a different site.

A construction site safety plan ensures that on site workers develop the awareness of risks in the workplace. It should also inform every member on the site of how to minimize the risks to themselves and their co-workers. If it fails to do this, it is near useless. Keep that in the fore of your brain if you are looking for a construction site safety plan.

Design and survey information should be in evidence, which means any number of appropriate schematics, sketches and architectural drawings. The locale should be detailed here as well, which may include local amenities, stores, materials, hazards and local infrastructure. A fire safety plan should also be present, as its probably the single most important aspect of fire safety.

Its very important for any construction site safety plan, or indeed documentation relating to construction safety, that it is written in plain English. The addition of legislation and regulatory laguage has little or no validity on a construction site. Indeed, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of construction legislation. When we, as construction workers, use language which is as pragmatic as possible, very often the Safety and Health legislation concerning us is filled with little of intelligible worth. Remember to look out for this plain english in any literature to do with this document.

A construction site safety plan is entirely for the safety of the site, not the ease of the site manager.

Like any other working environment, those in the construction industry may experience work accidents from time to time. If the employee’s injury can be directly attributed to the mistakes of the employer, these accidents can lead to successful construction accident claims.

While making work accident claims can help many of those injured on construction sites, it is far better if employees and workers are made well aware of the dangers, and the correct procedures are put into place to prevent construction accidents from happening in the first place. This would lead to a reduction in construction accidents and fewer construction accident claims being made.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides statistics related to construction accidents – here are four interesting construction accident statistics for those who want to learn more about the potential dangers of working on a construction site.

1. Construction accidents have the most fatal injuries

With 29.4 percent of all fatal injuries in 2008/9 attributable to the construction industry, construction accidents cause the most fatal injuries of all the main industry groups. With 53 fatal construction accident injuries in 2008/9, this was, however, a 26 percent decrease on the previous year’s figure.

2. Major construction injuries are decreasing

Since 1999/2000 there has been an overall decrease in the number of reported major injuries occurring in the construction industry. In fact, the overall rate for 2008/9 is 36 percent down on that for 1999/2000. Despite this reduction, there are still more major injuries reported among those working on construction sites than there are in any other main industry group. There was also a steady decrease in over-3-day construction injuries during this time, totalling a 43 percent decrease since 1999/2000.

3. The most common construction accidents involve handling and slips and trips

Construction accidents most commonly involve handling (29 percent of accidents) and slips and trips (22 percent). These are also the most common types of accidents reported across all the main industries. However, construction differed from other industries in the overall quantity of injuries resulting from falling from a height. This accounts for 17 percent of construction injuries compared to only 8 percent overall. Moving or falling objects were also more of a cause of accidents in construction, with 16 percent compared to an overall 11 percent. Contact with moving machinery, electricity and collapses/overturns all had a higher occurrence in construction than in other industries.

4. Less serious construction injuries are under-reported

A higher proportion of reported construction accidents are serious compared to those in other industries. However, Labour Force Survey (LFS) data indicates that this is because less serious construction injuries are under-reported. The LFS estimated rate of non fatal injuries for 2007/8 was 1427 per 100,000 compared to the actual rate reported of 880 per 100,000. This indicates some work accident victims may be missing out on the compensation they deserve by failing to make legitimate construction accident claims for less serious injuries.

If you have suffered as a result of a construction accident, you may be able to make a construction accident claim. Find out more about work accident claims by contacting a legitimate claims management company as soon as possible.

Building your dream home? You will soon learn that it takes plenty of compromise to see this dream into reality. You need to balance the features you want in your new home versus your budget.

Many a dream home has turned into a money pit that is a major task to finish just because these self-build projects did not first consider the overall budget. To make sure that you are able to build your own home and see it to its completion, you have to estimate the construction costs and discuss the budget with your architect and builder. You should do this even before you buy the lot. Fortunately, there are plenty of free software that help you estimate construction costs, even before you start.

A brief search on the internet using the phrase “construction estimating software” will reveal dozens of cost calculators that will give a detailed breakdown of construction costs. The overall cost will depend on the location, home size and the features that you build into your new home. These online calculators can take into account fairly precise details using the zip code, property style and square footage to provide a reasonable estimate of the build cost.

Using these construction estimating software solutions is only part of the overall story. We’ve already mentioned that building your own home is likely to require you learn the art of compromise and this is where a good builder and architect will help you enormously. With subtle differences such as the pitch of the roof used making a significant difference to your total cost, working with your builder to explore the alternatives that are available can make the difference between success and failure.

When negotiating with your builder, you can use construction estimating software to highlight the areas where you can negotiate on the price. You can use the estimates you get from the online calculators with quotes and estimates from different builders. You can compare these and use them as bases for negotiation.

You do not do cost estimation once. You need to do this at varying stages of construction because once you start on the project, you will still need ensure that the costs stick to the budget. This will definitely be a big headache. As you continue with the construction, you should run a construction cost estimate to help you manage costs and plan for changes in the design before it is way too late. The earlier you identify the changes that are needed, the more you are able to avoid additional expenses incurred by reworking work that has already been finished.

Remember that materials and labor costs can change during the course of the construction. That is why you should understand that an estimate is just that, an estimate. You will do well to prepare a reserve fund in the event that costs increase midway. Of course, a decrease in costs will work in your favor.

Construction estimating software is freely available and is an easy-to-use tool to help you manage your costs. However, you will still have to carefully go through your budget to ensure the successful completion of your dream home.