Business Management of Owning a Construction Company Essay Example for Free

Business Management of Owning a Construction Company Essay Owning a construction company requires good planning whereby the management puts several measures in place to ensure that a company performs well to generate enough money that aids it run its operations. Availability of surplus raw materials is one of the important factors to consider while managing a construction company. A construction firm should have enough laborers who offer services to customers and who work at the production stage. Running a construction company requires that the management come up with a good marketing strategy that allows the company to attract as many clients as possible to allow the organization generate enough income to carry out its activities effectively. Keeping records in an organized manner makes it easy for a construction company to make references and also to avoid loss of data. Managers who plan their activities wisely and accordingly in a construction company are in a better position of elevating the profit that the company generates and to improve the quality of goods and services that the firm offers. Definition of Important Concepts Management is a common term that this paper uses and it means to adopt effective measures as a leader that help to run an organization in an effective manner. The term construction is also common in this analysis and it means to come up with projects such as buildings, bridges and roads using qualified personnel. Counterarguments Even though raw materials are essential in the running of a construction company, some companies lack them due to poor management which in most cases leads to the fall of a business. Other construction companies lack enough laborers and this makes the available workers to strain with their work which in most cases lowers the outcome of construction companies. Lack of effective marketing strategy and lack of proper ways of record keeping also in many instances lead to the downfall of many construction companies because they are not able to generate sufficient income from different customers and they experience confusion respectively.This report makes use of an imaginary company by the name of Davis Construction firm to expound on the management of owning a construction company. As part of its activities, this construction firm produces building bricks from clay soil, produces celling boards that builders fit inside houses, and also hires professional masons and other construction desi gners to people or organizations that want to come up with buildings. To attain its goals, the management of Davis Construction firm must take into account several measure that will help it run its activities. Availability of Raw Materials First of all, the manager of this organization must ensure that there is a continuous flow of raw materials to enable the firm continue with its production. In this case, the essential raw materials that Davis Construction firm needs are clay soil to manufacture bricks, wood chips to manufacture celling board, and sufficient water to carry out the mixing process. Other raw materials that this organization needs to produce its goods include chemicals that it uses to carry out its production. A good manager will carry out a research on the best places to acquire the raw materials so that the firms does not experience delays in its production process. To ensure a steady supply of raw materials in a construction firm, managers should have more than one source of suppliers who deliver raw materials to the company. Having more than one source of supplier who supply the same product is important because this allows a company to carry out its activities continuously not to inconvenience customers. In many instances, unreliable suppliers make business managers to consider alternative ways getting raw materials to carry out an organization’s activities (Alonso, 2007, p. 3). Another way in which the manager of this company and any other construction company can ensure constant availability of raw materials is by establishing nearby sites that generate enough raw materials to run the activities of an organization. For example, to have a constant supply of water, the manager can hire professionals to come and dig boreholes that will provide surplus water to the firm at a much cheaper cost. Availability of Workers Effective management of a construction company calls for hiring enough laborers who help in running the organization’s activities. A wise manager will therefore, put measures to ensure that the laborers share work equally and that they do not strain while carrying out their activities. The laborers in a construction firm should fall into several sections where each worker partakes in the activity of his specialization. By each worker taking part in the activities of his specialization, a construction firm will attain accuracy in all the goods it produces and all the services it offers. To get laborers of sufficient knowledge to carry out their activities, the management of Davis Construction Firm should carry out a test while recruiting laborers after ascertaining their credentials. Even though it is a common occurrence in many countries that construction activities attract workers with low educational level (ILO, 2001, p. 12), it is important for managers to hire workers with high qualification to do their job perfectly so as to come up with products and services that satisfy customers’ needs. The management should ensure that workers get sufficient training to enable them carry out their duties with preciseness. As a way of improving the technical skills of their workers, managers should organize educative seminars where other professionals offer theoretical and practical knowledge to the workers. Good managers take the initiative of helping technicians who show great ability in their duties attain further training and also to serve as motivation to the co ntractors. Managers in a construction company should also take their workers to tour different construction firms because if they fail to do this, it will be impossible to compete favorably with other construction firms. Marketing Strategies A construction company should adopt effective marketing strategies that allows it to reach customers from different geographical regions. After intense research about marketing strategies, managers in construction companies such as Davies Construction Firm should come up with a suitable way of marketing the goods and services that the firm offers. To effectively reach customers from different regions, managers who run construction firms should adopt reliable channels such as the internet and publications because these two are able to carry so much information about a company and are also able to transmit information within a very short time. Enhanced technology has improved communication and marketing which has positive effect on inter-organizational relationship and communication (Avlonitis Karayanni, 2000, p. 442). Managers in a construction firms should appoint certain people with the right qualification to manage the company’s website and to attend to customers’ ne eds. In a business organization, it is important for managers to create a customers’ department wing to improve the quality of services and to build a long-term relationship with the customers (Rust, Moorman, Bhalla, 2010, p. 5). Record Keeping Managers who run construction companies should adopt better ways of storing vital information. Good forms of record keeping enable construction companies to make necessary reference whenever conflicts or discrepancies occur. For example, Davis Construction Firm can adopt better ways of record keeping by using computers that are able to store large amount of data for a very long time. People in charge of electronically storing data must be very keen in their activities to ensure that the information stays for a long time without getting lost (Trace, 2002, p. 138). Managers in a construction firm should also adopt a way of keeping records that is easy to retrieve information. Some of the advisable ways of keeping records in a manner that is easy to retrieve include using alphabetical orders, storing records according to the subject and keeping records in accordance to urgency. Conclusion Managers who run construction firms should take the initiative of helping the company attain its goals. As part of their management duties, managers should be able to come up with ways that ensures a constant and sufficient supply of raw materials to enable the firm carry out production of goods and services continuously. A manager should also be able to ensure that a construction firm has enough workers who help in carrying out the activities of a company in accordance to their area of specialty. Coming up with an effective marketing strategy helps to reach customers from different regions and therefore, be able to generate enough money for the construction firm. Above all, a manager in a construction firm needs to device effective methods of storing vital information about past and current operations of a construction firm. References Alonso, E., et al. (2007). Material availability and the supply chain: Risks, effects, and responses. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Avlonitis, G., Karayanni, D. (2000). The impact of internet use on business-to-business marketing: Examples from American and European companies. Industrial marketing management 29(4) 441-459. International Labor Organization, ILO. (2001). The construction industry in the twenty-first century: Its image, employment prospects and skill requirements. Geneva. Rust, R., Moorman, C., Bhalla, G. (2010). Rethinking marketing. Harvard Business Review. Trace, B., C. (2002). What is recorded is never simply ‘what happened’: Record keeping in Modern organizational culture. Archival Science 2(7), 137-159.at is Recorded is Never Simply What Happened: Record Keeping in Modern Organizational Culture Source document

john curtin :: essays research papers

Regarded by many as one of Australia’s greatest Prime Ministers, John Curtin assumed office just six weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and led Australia through the darkest hours of World War II. No prime minister has had a more profound effect on Australia and no man has given more in the service of his office. Curtin was born in the Victorian mining town of Creswick on January 8, 1885. His parents were Irish immigrants. His father worked first as a policeman, then as a publican, and the family moved frequently from town to town. His much interrupted education ended when he left school at 14 and began to supplement the family income–as a printer's apprentice, a labourer, a clerk, and a newspaper copyboy which as you can see lead him to champion rights of lower society. Curtin’s interest in social issues and the plight of the working class led him to become actively involved in the labour movement and he joined the Victorian Socialist Party in 1906. He soon became known as an eloquent and inspiring speaker and this ability enabled him to unite the people of Australia in a way unprecedented then and unsurpassed since. John Curtin was just beginning his working life as Australia became a Federated nation. Despite moving away from his Irish Catholic background, he was evidently influenced by it and by the poverty of his upbringing to realise that Australia was not an equal society, and that the major task of a national government was to govern for the good of all the people. In 1917 he moved to Perth as editor of the â€Å"Westralian Worker†. While living in Western Australia, he developed a realisation that Federation disadvantaged some states. He believed that some of these weaknesses occurred because the Constitution had not been followed closely enough. He never lost his faith in the spirit and intention of Federation .He first entered politics in 1928 as the Member for Fremantle in the House of Representatives, but his term was cut short when Labor was defeated in 1931 and he lost his seat. However, one year after re-entering parliament in 1934, he was elected parliamentary leader and when the Fadden government collapsed, Curtin became Prime Minister in October, 1941 He had a remarkable grasp of economics, and in four years his government overhauled the national economy, creating full employment in the process. He and his cabinet made a number of other revolutionary changes in the fabric of Australian life, particularly in the liberalisation of social welfare and immigration policies .

The main problem of the high amount

Alcoholism has always taken its toll on people, when they can stop controlling their habit, which would ultimately lead them to destruction in the form of alcohol abuse.   The people of Alaska are going through the same phase, and their rate of acceleration of the abuse is getting pretty much alarming.The main problem of the high amount of alcohol abuse in the state, can not only just be blamed at the people, but also should be blamed at the authority over them. Somehow the government’s function machinery seems too weak to handle the problem, and no proper steps have been taken till date that would help curb the problem.The relaxed laws, are the icing on the cake when it comes to the abuse in alcohol, as people have taken it for granted and know about the maximum punishment the state has to offer, when it comes to over drinking or to Alaska’s biggest problem, ‘underage drinking’; which is why the pathetic condition of the state in regards to alcoholism ca n be seen.Curbing the problem is not very easy, and steps have to be taken which have to be imaginative and out of the way category to put an end to the state’s meaningless alcoholism. More care can be given in counseling in schools, so that children from the age of 12 understand the bad effects of alcoholic abuse, and can learn to compete and to tackle the pressure of alcoholic parents and the pressures of the peer group to remain sober.Laws should be more vindictive when it’s coming to alcoholism in the state, and harsher punishments should be given than just monetary fines. People committing crime under the influence of alcohol, should be punished more strictly than compared to other states, as there is a serious rise in alcohol related crimes and felonies. More forces should be used to curtail smugglers providing illegal liquor in dry areas, as they have almost ruined the small rural areas of the state.A proposed solution to the problem would be that every person i n the state, should be given liquor permits, on the basis of compulsory psychological and physical tests, where his limit to alcohol would be based on the severity of his alcoholic problem, giving the government insights of severity of citizens along with getting sound demographic knowledge of alcohol abused areas.Since the beginning of civilization, man has always had tried to acquire a habit, that would keep him occupied and would make him content, at the cost of others. Strange as it may seem, man had developed the production of alcohol not too far after he understood the concept of still agriculture, and end of nomadic life also bought in an era of a time, where the concept of being in an inebriated state was realized.Alcohol has been introduced and has been cherished by all the civilizations that have come and that have been responsible for the development of mankind. Alcohol in those times, were used as medicine, God offerings, for nutrition purposes and was used for different sets of rituals and traditions that the natives followed apart from gratification.In today’s times, alcohol has become an integral part of our culture, and apart from beer and wine, which were the olden times favorite beverages, we have now options for the choicest of choicest drinks and cocktails available to us with great ease.Any pleasure activity that is done in control is well appreciated, but the problem occurs with an uncontrollable desire to continue doing pleasure activities, without understanding the consequences, and falling into the trap of addiction. This addiction trap, initial gains access to individuals, then groups, then large sections of the society, and finally it consumes an entire state, like the current condition of Alaska.  Alaska, is probably the best example of effects of alcohol abuse on a very large scale, and the whole state’s function is collapsing and the state output is being wastedon it residents, as the inhabitants of the state have reached a stage known as â€Å"disease of dependency†, because of high alcohol consumption.The problem with the state is it’s firstly very sparsely populated, and it suffers from a high percentage from the phenomenon of brain drain right after high school. Moreover in the winter the climate goes down berserk, and temperature can go down below -50 degree Celsius.This extreme cold also prompts the natives to drink more than the quota of an average American, and the natives love for alcohol has given the state an average of alcohol consumption more than double when compared to the national average for alcohol consumption.The report of the Alaska native federation stated the alcohol abuse has badly gripped the state of Alaska, and the entire state was heading for doom, as the effects of the alcohol were quiet drastic.

Essay on Sustainability at EastLink Engineering Project

Sustainability, which is the definition of â€Å"the process of using, conserving and enhancing a community’s resources†, plays a significant part in large engineering projects such as EastLink. EastLink’s long-term goal is to provide a fast, lasting alternative for drivers to commute between eastern suburbs. For a project that had a final total cost of $2.5B, sustainability, that is ensuring that its relevance and usefulness to the society today and for the foreseeable future is a pivotal part of EastLink. Permanent projects that demand large commitment and resources are the ones that need to heed the concept of sustainability the most, as often there is no going back once construction of such a project has begun. Just like it is with†¦show more content†¦Two significant decisions that have affected the EastLink project are firstly, the decision to develop EastLink as a tollway and secondly, an environmental issue involving potential damage that would b e caused to the nearby Mullum Mullum Valley. EastLink was a multibillion-dollar project, and its funding stemmed primarily from the Federal government, however as the project progressed, the Victorian Government switched to the stance that the EastLink project was no longer viable as a toll free road which subsequently led to the termination of the partial Federal government funding for EastLink. The Federal government’s reasoning being that it would only provide support and funding for projects that were toll free, hence the Victorian Government’s initial promise. The Victorian Government’s decision to have EastLink be a tolled motorway is one influenced by the operating and development costs of such a large civil project and is largely motivated by the financial return of such a project. These concerns were later shown as EastLink made a loss of nearly $93M in its first six months of operation, the largest reason being that being a tolled motorway, it would not attract as many motorists than it would†™ve being a toll free road. The second decision arose over the planning of the layout of EastLink, namely over the extent of environmental damage that would be caused