Engineering Services Providers – Selection Criteria

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

If the low cost professional engineering and consulting services will provide a client the same value as a higher priced cost provider, then by all means, select the low cost option. That’s the best choice. However, this is often not the case. In fact it is almost 100% not the case.

The difference in this category of selecting and purchasing professional services work is the element of interpretive, contextual decisions that impact schedule, materials, labor, and client experience, good or bad. The category of engineering services, the delivery of a professional service manifested in various documented deliverable work products (instruments of services) to a client in the built-world, is both a necessary line item expense and an investment. Why is it an investment? Because it is defining a cost for those subjective, contextual, and interpretive elements. These qualitative elements include categories such as communication, collaboration, client awareness. It also includes quantitative elements (though subject to interpretation) including codified knowledge, material optimization considerations, sequencing, shop and field labor, and more. It’s not a widget that is being purchased as a predefined “hard good.”

I think if clients in the manufacturing, supply, subcontracting, design, contracting, and related markets were made more aware of the differences and values delivered by those of us providing professional services, they could make more informed decisions on the potential cause-effect of their selection and purchase. We do clients a disservice to not explain the nuances between the choices. Conversely, I’ve had the conversations at length with some clients, and even when they acknowledged that they knew they would get a better service that translated into a better outcome, they still chose the low price. We also do our professional services category and peer businesses a disservice to not explain the differences and to compare as if all services are equal. They are not.

If the “low fee” provider will deliver the same scope and positive results, then a client should go with the low fee. If there is something of more value included in the higher fee, then it is up to the provider to define it to the client, make it contextually relevant, and to help facilitate them making the best choice for the specific project. The “right cost” is the cost that is “right in the groove,” no more and no less than it needs to be, for the appropriate results to be achieved. Every dollar spent should yield a return on the investment.

What’s your value proposition?

Resisting Complexity

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

As a company gets more mature and grows in size, adding people to support the purpose and mission of the business, it also needs to define internal processes and “SOP’s” (standard operating procedures) to reasonably manage with clarity the volume of work; to deliver to clients the work that supports the “why” of the business at more scale .

However, these SOP’s can also become an encumbrance because often times we end up working more and more to serve the internal functions of the business rather than the clients. This is a subtle, gradual, descent, and easy to miss.

To resist, to remain effective, takes consistent resistance by someone, or by a group of “someone’s” to keep asking this question, in perpetuity, “How can we simplify, resist the complex, streamline, and keep “the main thing the main thing” like we did when the business began, which is to focus on simplifying client’s lives and delivering creative solutions to them?”

Do you want to know one way to measure if you’re being too “internally focused?” First, look at your calendar. How many internal meetings are required each week versus how much time to produce the work and connect in a collaborative manner with the client? This is certainly applicable to those with client relationship management (CRM) responsibilities in any measure. But everyone, every role, impacts the client, whether a CRM, accounts payable representative, receptionist, engineer, proposal writer, scheduler, principal, project manager, designer, or other.

It’s all about the client, the customer. It’s all about the delivering the service or product as scoped, and in a manner that makes their experience reasonably positive, and one of relative ease.

We can lose sight of this if we don’t create and maintain awareness and constructive tension in the system.

It’s the responsibility of all of us to remind ourselves and our colleagues to “keep it simple.” And it starts at the top, with the leader of the business.

Build the systems, deliver to the SOP’s, but only if they are supporting the purpose driven mission of the business to the benefit of the client. Cut out everything else.