by Simplar | Jan 10, 2026 | Built Environment, Business Development, Business Development, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Labor & Labor Issues, Leadership, Project Delivery, Weekly Construction Message
Even as the New Year has dawned, I offer these final thoughts on the year just passed. If I could sum up this past year’s dialogue into one overall theme I would say, “Managing a construction business is a completely different activity from managing a...
by Simplar | Dec 26, 2025 | Built Environment, Business Failure, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Leadership, Leadership, Weekly Construction Message
In my experience, construction firms do not operate under firm budget disciplines like most other industrial concerns. Contractors usually craft project budgets in advance but rarely use them as a management tool. Because of the complexity and variability of each...
by Simplar | Dec 18, 2025 | Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Managing Subcontractors, Weekly Construction Message
One of the things that frustrates me about the relationship between contractors and owners is that owners act like they’re doing us a favor by letting us take all the risk in the financial transaction. It’s as if contractors are not trustworthy and owners...
by Simplar | Dec 11, 2025 | Built Environment, Business of Construction, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Organization Transformation, Partnering, Planning, PM, Project Delivery, Weekly Construction Message
“The ultimate measure of performance is not what is earned, but how the earnings are used to increase a construction company’s value.” (The Business of Construction Contracting, Thomas C. Schleifer, Aaron B. Cohen, Wiley, 2025 The only way for small...
by Simplar | Nov 28, 2025 | Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Risk Management, Risk Management, Weekly Construction Message
Dennis Birch, a well-respected construction accountant, argued that “many US contractors are watchers instead of managers of their financial affairs.” He claimed that “they do a lot of responding to things that happen to them but don’t have much...
by Simplar | Nov 20, 2025 | Built Environment, Business Failure, Business Failure, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Cash Flow (Getting Paid), Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Weekly Construction Message
Construction companies have few investible assets. Contractors are service providers. Over the years they will have acquired some depreciating assets like vehicles and equipment, but vehicles and equipment are only used to generate income and retain limited value...
