http://www.beingbrunel.com/profit-margins-engineering/ The Civil Engineering Blog Tue, 04 Apr 2017 18:43:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.2 http://www.beingbrunel.com/profit-margins-engineering/#comment-10007 Sat, 21 May 2016 22:54:14 +0000 http://www.beingbrunel.com/?p=4052#comment-10007 I think 10% would have been out of the norm even pre-recession. Personally I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we compete primarily on cost still. Software profits on innovation, property profits on quality. The construction tender process is pretty unusual- you can be the preliminary designers but have the job taken away; everyone attempts to price what is effectively a fake ‘design’ so that they can be benchmarked on cost, not value; for your average job people don’t even seek out companies based on reputation. This creates an environment (set by our clients, not ourselves) where the cheaper you can deliver a job, the more you win; except, as I hinted, you don’t really- not in the long run.

]]> http://www.beingbrunel.com/profit-margins-engineering/#comment-9987 Fri, 20 May 2016 12:27:10 +0000 http://www.beingbrunel.com/?p=4052#comment-9987 This is a bit doom and gloom Tom! If property and software developers are making money why aren’t engineering companies moving into this? If the current business plans aren’t working need to try something else. I think the problem is partly where we are in the economic cycle. My company was making ~10% profit before recession.

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