With a global skill reduction engineering businesses face the added pressure to produce quality work and cost efficiency. Getting this balance is a tricky one for any business, especially when looking to improve engineering firm. However, get this balance right and you’ll have
- a first-rate engineering team,
- higher profitability, and
- excellent reputation in the engineering world.
To help you streamline your firm towards higher efficiency and profitability, we’ve put together the following four tips:
# 1 Improve your team
According to Randy Wall, at the American Society of Civil Engineers, many engineering firms structure their business approach around a high economical and results-driven model. Its all in the numbers and pushing for more with little regard for each engineering team. Thus stress piles up and a high employee turnover ensues.
According to studies and experiments conducted by Randy Wall and his colleagues, providing engineers with ample space to
- express their career goals,
- receive quality training
- give feedback
- make contributions
- and more
creates an office environment more conducive to increased profitability. Why? Because people want to work for a company who is invested in them as employees.
By following a more people and growth-focused approach, you can take your engineering firm to greater heights. You’ll provide the following benefits:
- Improved work-life balance for employees thus higher productivity rates
- Reduced employee turnovers and overhead costs
- An excellent workforce who’ve been trained well for the tasks at hand and receive further training (aka the cream of the crop)
# 2 Focus on your clients
By focusing on client happiness, you ensure existing customers remain loyal to your firm. This helps reduce the pressure to pursue regularly pursue new clients. But, keeping clients happy is not the easiest of tasks.
Here are a few tips to help you keep the focus on your clients’ happiness:
- Keep them informed with regular updates, strategy ideas, and other project information
- Over deliver. Regularly lookout for cost-effective ways to go beyond your client’s expectations.
- Value your clients as people by showing an interest in them, being empathic, and being aware of their communication styles and thought processes. Make an effort to understand their viewpoint.
# 3 Implement the Pareto Principle (80/20)
The Pareto Principle goes on the premise of 20% effort for 80% gain or profit. Usually, engineering businesses like any business hold the view that increased profitability means more work. However, working more and harder does not translate into more profit. The key is to work smart.
This is where TallyPro can bring assistance. With software like TallyPro, you can keep track of which projects are taking more time than its worth versus those projects which require minimum time for a higher profit margin.
By analyzing your projects and working on time management, you will be able to successfully guide your team to focus on those projects with lower time constraints but higher profitability. An added bonus comes with a higher success rate and reduced stress.
# 4 Improve time management
Streamlining your firm’s time is crucial to getting increased profitability and efficiency. With unplanned meetings, project delays and adjustments, and non-billable tasks, time can easily be spent inefficiently. By knowing how employees are spending their time on projects and unbillable, you’ll be able to make the required adjustments within your team and your approach to project estimation.
Improved time management will ensure an increase in profitability and efficiency. This, in turn, will ensure happy clients while encouraging a sustainable reputation as a top-notch engineering firm.
Fortunately, time management software such as TallyPro provides user-friendly and easy tools to help you manage your engineers time and projects well. From time tracking to invoicing and reporting, you can keep your team up-to-date on each relevant aspect of your business.
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