Financial Management and Profitability

06/25/10 The Value of Authenticity Common businesses practices such as performance appraisals reinforce the cultural standard to conform rather than differ. But conformity is not what leaders are made of. Louis L. Marines
05/11/09 Creative Project Compensation Helping clients understand the value your firm brings to a project is the first step in calibrating the compensation your firm earns. If there’s a value proposition, then there’s a metric to quantify it. All you have to do is get creative. Scott Simpson
05/11/09 Roundtable: Tools of Today Are Opportunities for Tomorrow DesignIntelligence invited several of the profession’s leaders to participate in a virtual roundtable to share their thoughts on issues of technology.
01/02/09 1 Design Econometric Forecast: Strategic Optimism Along with Hard Realities 16 predictions for 2009
10/06/08 1 Is Construction Productivity Really Declining? Or are Census of Business definitions just making it look that way? Charles M. Eastman and Rafael Sacks
02/15/08 Driving Out Failure Costs Effective cost control covers two distinct realms: opportunity cost and failure cost. While opportunity cost retards growth, failure cost is an anchor that drags down the firm. Scott Simpson
09/26/05 Designer Compensation: How Important is Money, Really? As the economy grows stronger and the range of new work expands, there is a renewed focus on the importance of attracting and retaining qualified staff. In the scramble to attract and keep top talent, compensation once again becomes a much-discussed topic for both employers and employees. Robert Smith
09/08/05 Firms Report Fees, Profits Edging Up This headline is not a mistake. DesignIntelligence is currently conducting research on the growth rates at several hundred firms in the United States and Canada. James P. Cramer
09/08/05 Confronting Commoditization Commoditization is a big, handwringing topic that conjures up any number of nuisances in the path of what should be an enjoyable professional practice. In this era of rampant consumerism, still no one wants to pay more than is necessary for goods and services. [Admit it, dear reader, neither do you. Or me.] Problem is, neither does anyone want to pay even reasonable fees for design and construction services. Not the private sector and certainly not the distrustful public sector. Joan Capelin
07/26/05 1 Redesign Your Profits: Value-Based Fee Structure A brutal fact of reality for architecture and engineering firms is that prevailing pricing and compensation methods—setting fees on the basis of direct labor cost (whether selling hours on a time-and-materials or lump-sum basis)—provide only minimal profits for most firms.

Financial Management and Profitability

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