Challenges for Growing Engineering Services within a Large Construction Company

Abstract

PKS is a construction company with annual revenues of 6 billon dollars. Some engineering services already exist in the company, yet the author believes that there is capacity for growth in engineering services; specifically in the discipline of civil engineering. This paper studies the challenges for growing the engineering services within PKS only with the intention of identifying potential growth opportunities for professional designers in the branch of civil engineering. The benefits of growing in-house engineering services are: • To have a larger pool of design professionals to accomplish not only the design but also the construction of large projects. • To increase revenue by keeping work in-house. • To make the design-build process more efficient. This paper is written to provide guidance on how to overcome some of the challenges for growing the services provided by an existing small engineering unit within a large construction firm. The two most important challenges addressed in this document are: • How to sell engineering services within the company. • Have a better understanding of the legal implications of combining the construction and engineering services. The process of getting more work would likely take months or years; therefore, the goal of this paper is limited only to planning the initial stage of the process.