One of the many books I have read about running a construction business and how to perform and create successful financial sheets to make sure your business is doing well is through a book I read this semester called, A Simple Guide to Turning a Profit as a Contractor, by Melanie Hodgdon and Leslie Shiner. Some background about the book is about a man who owns a residential construction remodeling business who is not doing financially well as managing and keeping track of the jobs with old school techniques that making him lose money on jobs and not know how his business is doing or the projects. The book provides you as the reader and member in the construction industry a great foundation of how to create and run financial sheets to make sure …show more content…
The problem is he had one person who would only know how the project were doing from the standpoint of cost and materials, and office employee who was extremely stuck in her own ways and not willing or open to new ways to improve and turn around the business. He then talks to one his friends whose another contractor and had this amazing and smart financial analyst named Hope, who specializes in helping failing business and teach them ways and formulas to bring the company back to making money. She meets with mike weekly and shows him new ways to do things to bring his business up and running again. In the end, Mike’s business is back on track and now knows to estimate jobs, put a profit on it that will sustain his working capital to improve his …show more content…
The first thing, I learned is have weekly meetings with all project team and office staff to keep everyone involved on the project and status of things. So there’s no confusion or miscommunication of what one is supposed to be doing and how since it will be a time of explain, showing, and actually performing the tasks you need to do. The Second lesson I learned is before you estimate a job, take some time to figure out your profit and overhead you want to make in order to make sure your selling the job at the price that worth you doing it and not losing the job by giving the job away to the owner for free, since you under estimated the job. The final lesson I learned from reading this book is if you re in financial trouble don’t suffer, ask around and get somebody specialized in the thing you need help in and bring you out of financial trouble and work with closely to build that professional relationship, since they might need your expertise at some point so be in contact throughout the time when you in business. In conclusion what I liked abut the book is how it followed a story timeline and always made sure you understood the lesson they were teaching in each
The author has chosen companies which hide their flaws from investors. The author does mention about taking right people on the bus but he never mention the nature of these right people. How they are made and how they can be identified. And people need some motivation and money is a big motivator. Less salary can definitely built up regression and frustration in employees. So the author is wrong on this fact. The author should have compiled the book with some novel information and tips to build a great company. I believe the information was redundant and does not live up to the mark. People know discipline, right employees are all part of a successful company. The information in the book can set out much debate and the author might not have right answer to them. Overall the book is average and common on information.
1. Management Improvement - Mr. Walsh should take up management degree. He needs to learn employee empowerment and delegation. He needs to learn employee empowerment and delegation. The plant manager needs to be trained on leadership since he has no experience in management. He should also start hiring a public relations specialist and a marketing specialist to improve on these two aspects of the business.
Lewis, J. P. (2011). Project planning, scheduling, and control: A hands-on guide to bringing projects in on time and on budget (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
The owner could have had the job done correctly the first time and should have double checked everything to make sure it was done on the day his workers finished the job. By doing this he would have prevented a lot of phone calls from Stu and it would have made Stu a lot happier. On the other hand, say if they would have forgotten to do the small things, the owner should have had one of his employees go out to Stu Murphy's house and finish the job the day after he received the phone call. If one of his employees was not able to finish the job then the owner should have gone out to the house and finished the job himself. It is ultimately his job to make sure that all of his customers are satisfied because like stated in the case, his main form of advertisement is word of mouth. After the job was finished, the owner should then call Mr. Murphy or go by his house and make sure that the job was everything the Stu was looking for, even if he does not get a
Marshall, M.H., McManus, W.W., Viele, V.F. (2003). Accounting: What the Numbers Mean. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Dirk in his presentation is offering solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Because of his ineffective presentation, the investors deny his project. His lack of presenting statistics, proper estimates of profitability, approval of his product by important agency, or even patents on his invention cause him to loose the potential
Jugdev, K. (2012). Learning from Lessons Learned: Project Management Research Program. American Journal of Economics and Business Administration , 4(1), 13-22.
From what I haven taken from this book, I have come to a conclusion that with a few steps, you can find a way to make your company productive and meet the overall goal of your company. A clear understanding of what your company’s goal is and to be able to use this goal to understand what being productive means in terms of your company. Knowing the measurements that are needed to reach your goal. The ability to try new experiments and be able to brainstorm and talk together with a dedicated team of researchers that want to reach the goal and wont stop experimenting different processes until the end goal is met.
I personally found this book to be an excellent read, and while I haven’t read to many business management books. I can feel safe to say that I think this one does an excellent job in conveying key management principals for today’s workplace. It also appealed to me due to my fascination with the way in which our military operates. I believe he did a great job of staying clear of getting too detailed in either is leadership model and military jargon. I would recommend this book to anyone who feels intimidated by management books that read more like a textbook, who want to learn but also enjoy the reading too.
The study by (Suberi et al., 2014) had proven that, the firm financial factors started from their small capital at the start of their business. Imagine a low capital at the start of a business, there will be a low profit and how can the contractors roll back their profit and loss.
This book was very good and useful. Many of the instructions that were given can be applied to anyone’s everyday life especially to those that work with people all of the time. I really enjoyed reading this book. I’ve learned many things, and I plan on applying the skills discussed in this book whenever I need to.
In the business perspective, a problem is defined as the difference between what exists now (As Is) and what is desired (To Be). Some of the symptoms that show that there is a big problem with Mike’s Dynatrix Pty Ltd include; the customers are unhappy with late delivery of dynatrix, the directors are unhappy, anxious and pointing figures amongst themselves, the mode of documentation and filing of records is manual and very poor, nobody manages the whole process and the company’s production has deviated negatively. The major problem with this company is poor management and coordination, which calls for urgent attention. Other problems include poor decision making, producing poorly design products and performing unnecessary
Financial Accounting is primarily used to present the financial health of an organization to its external stakeholders that focuses on accounting over a specific period of time in the past and enables the audience (board of directors, stockholders, financial institutions and other investors) to see how the company has performed (Smallbusiness.chron.com,2017). Furthermore, theses financial reports have to be filled out on an annual basis and must be made part of a
Schaefer, P. (2011). The Seven Pitfalls of Business Failure and How to Avoid Them. Retrieved
...ndard school? Are you looking to build a low energy school with a limited number of sustainable elements to it? We have to get that philosophy agreed at the outset and getting some commitment from the authority to say, “Yes, well that’s the direction we want you to work” ... And I think that’s key. If you can set your parameters before you start putting pen to paper then you’ve got a really good chance of delivering what everybody wants.” (Bid Manager)