by Simplar | Feb 20, 2025 | Business Failure, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Financial Management and Risk, Risk Management, Risk Management, Weekly Construction Message
Continuing last week’s risk discussion: Recognizing, identifying, and measuring risk is a critical pre-bid task. A Las Vegas sports book doesn’t wait to set the line until after the game. A handicapper who failed to take a key player’s injured wrist into account or...
by Simplar | Feb 8, 2024 | Business Failure, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Weekly Construction Message
This year we have been examining the reality that our beliefs impact our business decision making. From the very beginning as children, we lay down little truths in our brain stem that never again come up for examination. This is how the human brain helps the race...
by Simplar | Oct 26, 2023 | Business Failure, Business Failure, Cash Flow (Getting Paid), Weekly Construction Message
The process of estimating and preparing bids is one of our most essential management tasks, including direct and indirect costs. Professional estimators have a detailed knowledge of construction materials, specifications, techniques, codes, and pricing trends as they...
by Simplar | Sep 21, 2023 | Business Failure, Business Failure, Risk Management, Risk Management, Risk Management, Weekly Construction Message
If you say “contracting” to anyone they immediately think of “construction”. The “building” industry has become identified with the signing of a contract at the point of sale. “Builders” have become “contractors” in the eyes of the public. This misidentification has...
by Simplar | Sep 20, 2023 | Business Failure, Business Failure, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Partnering, Planning, PM, Weekly Construction Message
Risk Mitigation Thomas C Schleifer, Ph.D. Thirty-five years ago, I initiated research that resulted in ranking construction contracting #2 in business failure rate (restaurants are #1). That data inspired me to begin ongoing research into the causes of construction...
by Simplar | Nov 3, 2022 | Built Environment, Business Failure, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Weekly Construction Message
CLEAN UP YOUR BOOKS Thomas C Schleifer, Ph.D. While operating the nation’s largest workout firm for sureties, I had occasion to audit the financial statements of hundreds of construction companies that had failed mid-project. While the causes of those failures varied...
