FMI Quarterly

2022 Q3

Driving Sustainability and Diversity in the Built Environment

Featured Article: Harness the Power of Your Board by Diversifying Your Directors

The concerns around building diverse and inclusive workplaces have been a part of office conversation for the past 60 years and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Here we provide a framework for leaders to capitalize on the increasing diversity in the industry and establish diverse […]

How Leaders in the Built Environment Can Champion Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The future of the industry will depend on expanding opportunities for all people, something that the most successful companies are already paying attention to across their organizations. To help understand this, we interviewed Rev. Larry S. Bullock, CEO of USMCA.

Creating Operational Excellence through Improving the Field and Job Sites

For many engineering and construction (E&C) firms, the first area they turn to for improvement is the field, since it often seems to be the easiest place to work on efficiencies. Yet, operationally superior organizations know that you must implement the right practices, processes and people across […]

Private Equity: Finding the Value in the Built Environment

Skilled private equity investors can spot opportunities, but the complicated outlook for the economy and the construction industry, including building products, facilities services and related E&C industrial industries, means that it’s going to take deep industry knowledge to find the right […]

2022 Q2

How to Win the Big Talent Race: Tactics and Strategies

Featured Article: Employee Stock Ownership Plans: An Effective Recruiting and Retention Strategy

The built environment offers tangible payoffs for those who do the work: world-class projects and feats of engineering. Success within the space is tied to a sense of shared ownership with employees feeling they have buy-in and a say in the decision-making process. ESOPs are a great means to an end, […]

Industry Trends Shaping E&C Ownership Transitions

Handing over an organization’s reins to the next generation and transitioning ownership are never easy processes. For optimal results, the ownership transfer and management succession (OTMS) approach starts with identifying, selecting and developing key associates; ensuring that leadership roles […]

Megaprojects: How Great Leaders Can Be the Difference Between Success and Failure

Discover what differentiates a great leader of a large project from an average one and how your organization can help people develop critical competencies.

Preconstruction: The Foundation in Operational Excellence

To be operationally superior, E&C firms need to develop and implement preconstruction processes that will create a defined game plan before people show up to a job site. Being organized helps retain talent, win business, improve productivity and increase profits.

Trading on Excellence: The Value of Talented Field Leaders

When engineering and construction (E&C) firms think about leadership development, the focus naturally goes to C-suite and business development teams. While those managers are a critical part of a firm’s ultimate success, companies often neglect to develop on-site leaders who are ensuring projects […]

2022 Q1

Strategies for Navigating Volatile Times

Featured Article: Compounding Competitive Advantage: The Integration of Strategy, Project Selection and Execution Framework

Being selective about what projects you take is becoming a business imperative in today’s market. Engineering and construction firms need to have superior execution that aligns with clear strategies to increase their competitive advantages.

Why Contractors Need to Understand Embodied Carbon

Carbon accounting isn’t required on all projects yet, but there are major incentives for early adopters.

Don’t Risk Poor Cash Management Due to Lack of Strategy

Regardless of market conditions, having the right level of liquidity is a crucial aspect of successful risk management for contractors.

Engineering and Construction Compensation: What Executives Need to Know

Companies need to pay attention to broader economic trends and other data issues when determining pay in today’s highly competitive environment.

2021 Q4

Recalibrating Your Operations For 2022

Featured Article: Project Selection Discipline Yields Better Performance Outcomes

The statistical risk of taking on a bad job increases with the size and number of projects. Sophisticated project selectivity controls can help manage this risk and make balanced, objective pursuit decisions.

How Strategic Investments in Your Talent Drive Operational Excellence

A focus on team productivity and unity will provide sustainable short- and long-term success.

Supply Chain Disruption: Is Now the Time for Contractors to Warehouse or Carry Inventory?

Purchasing and holding long-lead inventory of construction materials can provide advantages for certain projects or customers, but also brings with it carrying costs, increased risk and other considerations for your business.

Planning Compensation in a Dynamic E&C Environment

By carefully evaluating jobs and employees, E&C companies are better positioned to meet operational needs and address talent requirements among a workforce that can afford to be demanding.

Anything But Typical: Managing Subcontractor Default Risk in Today’s Environment

As the pandemic continues to disrupt supply chains and cause inflationary pressure on the engineering and construction industry, we talk to four large subcontractor default insurance carriers about the events of the last two years, key trends and what’s next in 2022.

2021 Q3

Capitalize on Engineering & Construction Momentum to Succeed in 2022

Featured Article: Wanted: New Leadership Competencies for Managing Megaprojects

Large complex projects—those valued at $1 billion or more—are gaining momentum across the U.S., causing new and unanticipated challenges for project teams.

The Path to Environmental, Social and Governance Goals Runs Through the Built Environment

There’s no one solution to the environmental and social challenges that we face, but many in the built environment across the infrastructure value chain are looking for ways to improve their environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact.

Supply Chain Disruptions: What You Need to Know

Global supply-chain disruptions have disrupted the engineering and construction industry, with all eyes now watching the horizon. A boom is underway, but firms can't get enough of the materials they need in hand, nor can they find the staff to build once they do have supplies.

2021 Q2

Positioning Your Engineering and Construction Organizations for Long-Term Success

Bringing Employees to the Table: Using Compensation to Achieve Successful Ownership Transfer

How can owners ensure business continuity when they’re ready to relinquish ownership and management responsibilities?

Ownership Transfer and Management Succession: Positioning Your Organization for Long-Term Success

Here are 10 questions all E&C firms should be asking themselves as they either reinvent existing ownership transfer and management succession plans or develop brand-new ones.

2021 Q1

Emerge Stronger and Better: The Great Reset in 2021

This is quite an ambitious theme and goal for the first quarter of 2021, yet, now is the time to evaluate your plans and strategies to make sure you're ready to take advantage of opportunities.

Featured Article: Leading Construction Innovation and Agility in 2021

As design and construction executives navigate through 2021, many are reaching the same conclusion: The more things change, the more the leadership fundamentals remain the same.

A New Era of Work: Recognizing and Rewarding Remote Employees

Addressing common concerns about working from home now and supporting employees through the current disruption will improve trust, reduce worker turnover and build teams that are invested in your organization’s future.

Don’t Wait: Craft A Winning Strategy Now

This isn’t the time to ignore the operating environment and hope everything gets better soon. Instead, start strategizing now for the future.

2020 Q4

2021 and Beyond: Why Operational Excellence Matters

2020 has been incredibly difficult due to the pandemic, economic recession and many other COVID-19-related disruptions to everyday life and commerce.

Featured Article: Get Lean and Mean: Preparing for 2021 and Beyond

What does increased competition mean for your business? How will you become more competitive?

Four Ways to Optimize Talent in Uncertain Times

Tips for effectively assessing your current labor pool, making the necessary adjustments and preparing for future success.

Why Focusing on Your Company Vision Still Matters

Watching, waiting and ignoring changes until the COVID-19 pandemic is over isn’t going to work. Here’s why.

2020 Q3

Reset and Respond: Leading Through COVID-19 and the Next Normal

This issue of the FMI Quarterly aims to help leaders and managers understand, contextualize and arm themselves with useful tools and new ways of thinking during this time of extraordinary change.

Featured Article: How to Develop an Effective Strategic Decision-Making Framework

Companies that avoid a nearsighted view and take a holistic view of new market opportunities will be best positioned to succeed in 2021 and beyond.

Agile Leadership: Five Capabilities Needed in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Learn from industry leaders on how you can start building agility today to position your company effectively for future “black swan” events like the global pandemic.

Fleet Management Dynamics in a Post-Pandemic World

Following best practices in fleet management can mitigate key challenges and create a competitive advantage for companies that maintain a high level of fleet performance.

How to Win in an Uncertain Heavy Civil Construction Market

How heavy and highway construction contractors can use good insights, facts and forecasting tools to pave the way to future success (in any market conditions).

Ownership and Succession Planning During and After the Storm

Building momentum for effective ownership transfer and management succession both during and after the crisis.

Playing to Win: How to Drive Growth Through Differentiation

Differentiation is all about value, which represents those things that a customer is willing to pay a bit more for.

Strategies for Strengthening Resilience in a VUCA World

The business environment can change overnight, presenting daunting, unanticipated challenges as well as genuine opportunities for those who have prepared for the unexpected.

2020 Q2

COVID-19 Collection: FMI Insights and Solutions

By now, the operating plan and budget you opened the year with have been scrapped. Unexpected, but appropriate. The top of this business cycle, the longest expansion in U.S. history, vanished over a weekend in early March. Ninety days on, the global economy is in steep decline and dragging the Built Environment down with it.

Building an Agile Organization to Thrive in Uncertain Times

One electrical construction and automation services provider used its agile business strategy to break through the barriers during coronavirus pandemic and prepare for the next disruption.

The Changing Game of Strategy

Why E&C companies need to approach strategy differently in times of heightened uncertainty and volatility.