A strategic initiative to expand Plano-Coudon’s Preconstruction Division is beginning to produce benefits for our clients and opportunities for our company.
“We wanted to become a more valuable resource for owners, clients and others we serve in all our market segments. We wanted to deepen our expertise in those segments and provide owners and developers with quicker, more robust, upfront assistance,” Brett Plano said.
Consequently, Plano-Coudon executed a plan this year to expand preconstruction services. After an extensive, regional search, it promoted Project Executive Mike Kovacs – a 15-year employee of Plano-Coudon – to Director of Preconstruction. The company hired its first Marketing Manager, Jeffrey Doran, and hired additional estimators.
“We also decided to start cycling young project engineers through the preconstruction division for a year each so they can gain experience in estimating,” said Kovacs. “That’s an important skill that we want to cultivate in all of our project managers. So this practice will both expand our estimating capacity and strengthen the operations side of the company”
The initiative is already enabling Plano-Coudon to provide pricing on more projects and provide rapid assistance to developers.
“A lot of times, developers are working under tight feasibility periods so time is of the essence,” Plano said. “Now, we can jump on those projects. We’re all about helping clients get the answers they need in a quick, efficient manner so they can complete their pro forma work.”
In addition to growing its staff, the preconstruction division is refining its operations to adopt best-in-class business practices and technologies.
“Overall, this is creating more sophisticated front-end operations for the company,” Ryan Coudon said.
The strategic initiative to beef up the preconstruction division also marks a shift in Plano-Coudon’s approach to business development. The division is involving more staff members, especially project executives, in business development. It is also adopting a longer range, more strategic approach to capturing business.
“Part of Mike Kovacs’ job is to look 1.5 to 2 years into the future for opportunities that we can put into the pipeline,” Coudon said. “Our goal for the preconstruction division is to have it drive more steady, sustainable, diversified growth for Plano-Coudon.”
That approach, Kovacs said, can help the company expand its work in existing project sectors, branch into some additional sectors, and fuel the company’s geographic growth in the District of Columbia/Northern Virginia market.