5 Growth Strategies To Expand Your Construction Business While Resisting The COVID Impact

After all the downtime, COVID-19 pandemic has made to the construction industry, every construction firm and the contractor is aiming at plans that can help them grow and expand their business in the future. Though the effect and impact of the pandemic have got a handle, there are still many economies that are struggling with the ongoing damage.

Therefore, it is extremely important for construction companies operating across global boundaries to plan a foundation for success in the near future. Since it is more of a strategical task that needs quality implementation done with hands-on expertise, we bring you a list of 5 growth strategies that can help you position your business better.

Let’s find out what they are:

1. Reconsider Your Business Plan

Business expansion for construction firms amidst the pandemic should begin with the revision of their business plan. Though these are the foundational documents and usually do not require many changes, reconsidering these documents can help to have a better sense of direction with the ultimate mission as well as the path to achieve the same.

However, the process to amend the business plan needs contractors to go through a few questions that can help overcome possible misalignments.

• Does the current mission need any amendments to work on the existing market situation or the likely changes in the industry?
• Is there any possible way to get over the competition without making any amendments?
• Are there any structural issues that pandemic has made to the business limiting the opportunities and growth?
• Is there any scope for new growth opportunities that are revealed with the pandemic

2. Upgrading The Workforce Management

The construction industry is dealing with massive labor shortages ever since the great recession of 2008. However, the situation has become much worse with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic making the environment more growth preventive. In short, workforce management is one of the most critical obstructions that are required to be rectified by construction companies. Therefore, it is necessary that a process should be established to aim for retention and enforce better workforce management practices. Some of the practices that might help construction companies include:

Aim at Retention

The priority of the construction firms should be retaining the workers and retention could only be exercised by keeping the workers happy.  The workers could be called for identifying any issues and resolve the same to improve the procedure. This will also help you cut off any cultural issues that might appear as an obstacle to the workers.

Go Through Your Workforce Management Tactics

The next thing which you can do to retain the workforce is going through your workforce management tactics for better worker satisfaction. Either it is some procedural changes or technology upgrades, make sure you never hesitate to fix these things when it is depriving your workers of efficiency.

Advanced Recruitment Practices

When you are understaffed, it brings unwanted pressure to your business which can be overwhelming to bear. Furthermore, this pressure starts to reflect into your business operations as well as overall profits. But to overcome such stress, you could simply start to practice some advanced recruitment practices that can foster relationships. It can be fostering some apprenticeship programs or you can ensure keeping in touch with former workers to practice goodwill that can benefit you when you need to rehire new staff.

3. Foster Technology

If it is something that can turn to be a big bottleneck for your business, it is inefficient administrative work. However, the situation is quite prominent with construction firms that are involved in wage work. The situation often calls for contractors to limit or avoid government projects since the administration team has no or minimal access to hold such an amount of paperwork.

However, taking access to technology could bridge the gap between efficient administration and the operational process by simplifying the tasks related to accounting, resource allocation, payrolls, and other processes. Also, the use of integrated construction accounting software like ProjectPro could help contractors to get over any operational issues related to estimation, bid planning, document management, project management, progress billings, and more.

4. Examine Operational Process

If you think you have command over your business objectives and workforce with access to advanced construction management software, the next thing you need to check is your operational process. This should start with locating any broken processes that are not competitive enough to generate profits.

Overcoming operational issues could help to get rid of data-related issues that can affect estimation and bid process. However, this can begin by involving project managers and administrative staff who have quicker access to problem areas and could suggest rapid solutions to the issues. Most of the time, the operational issues that can affect the business process are related to bidding, billing, estimates, payroll, project management, and of course, time and attendance.

5. Safety & Compliance

Construction is a sensitive practice as any major accident or minor violation could cost you potential financial setbacks. Therefore, the last step to growth that can help construction firms to sustain during and beyond the pandemic is defining sticking to safety and compliance regulations. However, this might need to ramp up the existing process for better outcomes.

Some of the possible actions that might help construction firms, contractors, and project managers to streamline things include:

• Communicate Safety Standards
• Assessment of Safety Concerns
• Training and Development Sessions For Employees
• Rectifying Inefficient Practices
• Digitization of Reporting Activities
• Have Dedicated Compliance Management Team.

All in all, success in construction is not a one-day process and needs constant monitoring of the possible areas of failure. Either it is the business objectives, workforce practices, technology, or compliance, everything should be checked in routine to avoid any downtime that can be even more serious during these times of pandemic.

Though success for some construction companies could be the expansion to new markets, the process to improve profit margin and have more winning bids begins with creating a path to growth which starts with quality management and wise use of construction management software technology.

If you need to learn how ProjectPro can be the ultimate solution you need to grow your business while taking down on any potential downtime that may appear from the pandemic, reach our experts for a free demo and a completely customized solution guidance.