- Details
- Hits: 6415
Five of the top six remain there. 'Amazing' of Atkins Asia Pacific who were first two periods ago and last period slipped to 11th bounced straight back to 2nd. The shock of slipping probably produced a lot of late nights modelling their response. Atkins Asia Pacific has a great record in MERIT and have had teams in the final several times over recent years but they haven't yet produced a Champion and their eye is on the big prize. 'Singularity' of Atkins India climb from 3rd to 1st whilst their colleagues 'Ubiquitous' of Atkins India slip from 2nd to 4th. Atkins India also have a great record and have had teams in the final too and are keen to produce the first India Champion colleagues. Arup's 'Arup Infrastructure Group II' move up one to 3rd splitting the two Atkins India teams. The Arup team has started us thinking about a prize for the slickest team name! Mott MacDonald's 'Strike whilst the iron is Mott' are down from 1st to 5th. CB&I's 'Construction Brilliant Innovation' are down one at 6th and the former 6th place 'Team 7' of Subsea 7 slip out of the top six to 9th.
The big movements are below the top six see Aurecon's 'CONSTRUCTICONS' and 'CAPITAlized' of Capita Property & Infrastructure as two examples of major movements and with a good number of teams moving more than 20 places there is still a great churning going on and the top six are by no means safe . It becomes increasingly difficult to consolidate in the leading positions, nervousness creeps in and decisions tend to become cautious resulting in more adventurous teams catching and overtaking.
The average improvement this time was 16%
There are many decisions to get right and one is the project manager. A project manager whose experience is well suited to the project will produce a more efficient project with lower costs. A project manager whose experience is not well suited to the project will manage the project less effectively. This can be exaggerated if the project is far from Head Office where there may be less direct contact. So the well experienced project managers should be on the distant projects and the less experienced closer to home.
Click here to see the League table For Period 7
- Details
- Hits: 6680
The current top six have three teams that weren't in the top six in the last round. It is now UK, India, India, UK, Netherlands and UK with Hong Kong, Australia and Qatar slipping out.
The game is the same but there are many decisions to get right. Make sure that you make enough estimating effort to give an estimate you can have confidence in. If you're not winning your bids it's because you're not competitive, your margins may be too ambitions but these need to be added to a sound estimate. If the estimate isn't sound it may be too high and uncompetitive, it may be too low and unrealistic, so you need adequate estimating effort. Also watch the relationship between turnover and capital. If your turnover is low your capital isn't working hard enough. There may be better things you can do with your capital.
Who'll end up in the top six? It's anyone's guess as it's still wide open.
Click here to see the League table For Period 6
- Details
- Hits: 6460
The search for the MERIT 2015 Champion, who will be the 25th Champion, has started. The first round is always difficult to interpret with data from late teams awaited.
The top six who are currently from Hong Kong, India, UK, India, UK, QATAR with Australia and the Netherlands close by demonstrate the international competition this year with the 2014 winner coming from Hong Kong.
The spread of scores is not yet a worry for those that are lower down. Changes of 15% to 20% in one round are not uncommon and with 7 round to go everyone is still competing.
MERIT requires the juggling of a whole range of management decisions: head office staffing which affects the efficiency of the company operations; marketing; estimating; bidding; selecting project managers; setting up the project workforce; managing the company finances borrowing or investing, retaining profits, shareholders dividends, turnover:capital capacity etc all against a background of competition and some uncertainty. Success results from making the best decisions on most of the issues. Real company directors face the same challenges and compromises and they too try to make the best decisions. It’s time to think like directors and act like directors.
Good luck to all.