"Our Opportunity Management System is Crap"

... a VP at a publicly traded E&C firm recounted to me recently....

He was talking about their CRM system, but it made me think about the challenges of selling professional services and aligning required technology across a global enterprise (in some companies that can be described as loose confederations of feudal kingdoms) in the global environmental and engineering design industry.

So what 'opportunity management' objectives are critical to E&C firms?

• Improve service delivery (responsiveness to RFI / RFPs)
• Improve margins (identify those prospects who may require higher margin consulting services, and also those do not cause AR headaches)
• Increase revenues (allow for wider range of services to be delivered to key accounts)
• Assure alignment with strategic objectives for growth (reporting and analytics)
• Provide mechanism to build stronger relationships and partnerships with clients

I think improving margins may yield the highest and most rapid ROI for any BPR work and enabling technology deployment in opportunity management. Many of the global E&Cs are already targeting higher margin consulting in mining, environmental sustainability, and energy efficiency services, which should also help drive 'downstream' revenues in engineering design and construction management.

The CRM toolsets being used today? A whole 'nuther subject...from spreadsheets to SaaS....

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Some Notes on the recent ENR Outlook 2008 Conference

I attended the ENR Outlook 2008 conference last week in Washington DC (http://www.construction.com/event/ConstructionBusinessForum-Fall/default.asp), and found a number of topics of interest; paticularly around adoption of new technologies. Some general thoughts:

1. Rapid adoption of Analysis Tools

Richard Fox, COO of CDM (http://www.cdm.com/) talked about market drivers in the water industry (supply, distribution, quality, treatment). Of particular interest to me was the use of new tools to measure and improve upon sustainability as well as the use of risk assessment and management tools. I believe this will open the door to new opportunities where E&Cs may differentiate their offerings and provide more value to clients in terms of energy mgt, compliance (government and NGO) and even brand management, by leveraging 'analysis' technology to key toolsets.

2. Private - Public Partnerships

Much has been discussed in regards to creating a positive investment environment to attract private capital to fund major infrastructure programs. Clearly, Europe has taken the lead in this arena, as many municipalities have outsourced the design, build, and operations of utility systems. I have worked with a couple of the major E&Cs who have experience rapid growth in their international operations, especially in outsourced operations & maintainence contracts. Each company is leveraging either external or internal investment sources to fund these deals, and to help structure terms (capital, ROI, performance requirements). They have also organized seperate P&L centers to manage the operations. One would think that should the market open up here in the US, these companies would have significant experience to leverage. Read more!