Nonprofit Blog

The construction industry needs a few good men and women. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the industry will add more than 1.6 million jobs in the decade leading up to 2022. To help meet this lofty goal, industry leaders recently pledged at the White House to hire 100,000 veterans before 2020.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an ambitious way to gain traction in today’s competitive construction marketplace. With so many baby boomers approaching retirement age, market analysts expect that there will be plenty of bargains for small to midsize businesses in the coming years. In fact, $10 trillion worth of baby-boomer-owned companies are expected to soon change hands, according to the Exit Planning Institute.

Nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans can be a win-win for construction companies and their top managers. Under these contractual agreements, participants defer part of their salaries into a separate account that typically doesn’t pay out the funds until retirement, disability or death.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently released the fourth generation of its renowned energy efficient building design. The updated framework dramatically expands the types of structures that may qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and includes a comprehensive suite of Web-enabled project management and assessment tools for contractors. Let’s take a closer look at “LEED v4.”

For more than 50 years, a family-owned, midsize roofing company has operated out of the same 20,000-square-foot warehouse in an industrial area near a growing urban center. The building includes ample office space, as well as materials storage and a fenced-in lot for service vehicles and large equipment. But the facility was vulnerable to an uptick in local criminal activity — a risk that suddenly became all too clear.

Competitive intelligence is easy to joke about. “You mean corporate espionage,” many contractors might joke. Not exactly. Legally and ethically gathering relevant data on your competitors can be a valuable, productive practice. And construction companies can go about doing so in a variety of ways.

For contractors, obtaining prompt payment upon completion can be difficult. Privately held construction companies in the United States waited 56 days for payment in 2013, according to financial analysts Sageworks. That’s more than 20% higher than all other private U.S. companies. This also marked a three-year high in 2013 — up from 54 days in 2012 and 52 days in 2011.

A small but growing commercial subcontractor recently learned that a little due diligence goes a long way in protecting against surety bond fraud. For several decades, the family-owned company had worked relatively small but usually profitable jobs in its local niche. And now it was moving into larger, municipal projects.

Federal contracts can be a good way to expand the profitability reach of a construction company. But these jobs have their own complex rules, including paying prevailing wages pursuant to the Davis-Bacon Act. Many contractors face one particular dilemma when sorting through the prevailing wage requirement: Should they pay all applicable wages in cash or remit some of them as benefits?

When it comes to increasing sales in the construction industry, there’s always room for improvement. Doing so rarely comes easy, with referrals and word-of-mouth representing the primary sources of new business for contractors.