Benchmarking and Averages

What’s a good number? What are others doing?

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

As the leader of a contracting business, you must be constantly focused on the basic scoreboard metrics of customer satisfaction, profitability, and cash flow.

Scoreboard: Averages Only Tell a Partial Story. Benchmarking Averages example for 2022 showing Civil, General Contractor, MEP, and Other Specialty


Let’s dive into something simple like profitability and quickly talk about the “benchmark averages.”  

  • Reports such as CLA’s and CFMA’s are valuable and always worth reading.
      
  • There are lots of different ways to account for expenses. Look at higher-level measures, such as net profit before taxes.
      
  • Realize that average means just that. If the average is 3%, then for every contractor who reported a 1% year, there was one that reported a 5% year. For every contractor who reported a break-even year, there was one that reported a 6% year.
      
  • These will be distributed across a bell curve, and you want to be on the high-side of this bell curve.

Your market strategy, business development capabilities, and operational discipline are huge variables.  

How close are you to the average?  

What would it take for you to be above average? Contact us for a conversation.


Construction Benchmarks, Trends, Forecasts, and Predictions
Two of the most highest leveraged choices leaders of contractors make are about market strategy and major resource allocations. Robust information systems about the external market are a critical part of this decision making process. ...

Construction Benchmarks, Trends, Forecasts, and Predictions
Two of the most highest leveraged choices leaders of contractors make are about market strategy and major resource allocations. Robust information systems about the external market are a critical part of this decision making process. ...

Talent - Sustainably Integrating the 4 Priorities
When assessing the strategic importance of investing in your talent acquisition and development processes at the field leadership level it is important to understand the depth of the talent shortage over time.
How Effectively Do You Ask for Help?
Effectively asking for help is one of the most important skills you can build for your own development. Developing a team culture where everyone is comfortable asking for help and helping others is a critical leadership skill.
Planning a Project - 2X Organizational Chart
A contractor would never start to build a facility by trying to design and build a room or two at a time. Contractors must apply that same planning time horizon to their organizational structures.