February 2010 Big Wednesday

The changing face of business development in the engineering and infrastructure sectors

Katie Rosser, Manager Seldon Gill NSW

At Seldon Gill we are currently engaged in a research project with our clients and contacts in the engineering, infrastructure and project delivery sectors.  We began this project as we felt that too often these sectors gets wrapped up into the wider “professional services” banner when such reports are published which does not add the maximum value to those working in these sectors.

This research involves us meeting with Directors and Senior Managers in the BD / marketing space and covering topics such as: the key challenges facing them and their businesses; team structures; an analysis of their core services; market forces and competition and how firms were affected by the global financial crisis.

In this article we raise some interesting points which have already come out of our research and encourage anyone working in these sectors who would like to discuss these issues and/or be part of this research to get in touch with us.

Key challenges – Some of the most commonly cited challenges which are very much front of mind for business development professionals in these sectors include:

• Client engagement strategies – specifically further embedding them into the business and better implementation.
• Managing the integration of global businesses.
• Skills gap – engineers working as Client Managers without specific training.
• Consistency across all service lines and geographies within the business (this issue often arises due to the extensive and organic growth which many firms made through mergers in the boom times; also, particularly in the mining and minerals area, the search for more commodities often means opening offices in new locations, quickly and with new local staff).
• Rebranding is also an issue for many firms who have grown through mergers and have several brands being brought into one.
• Winning work as it is no longer “just walking in the door”.

Market Forces – Some current trends occurring in the engineering and infrastructure sectors:

• There is a big difference in the smaller, private firms and the larger publically listed companies in their marketing: the smaller, private firms seem more able to be innovative in their solutions and have less process to jump through before implementation.
• The market is more competitive – it is not unusual to get 10 firms bidding for a piece of work and there have been occasions when 19-20 bids are put in for one project.  The standard of the bids is also a lot higher.
• With many firms trying to diversify and move into more regions and commodities, some firms’ niche service offerings are being ebbed away by an increasing number of competing firms. 
• The market is increasingly price sensitive: different firms have opposing views on whether or not to cut their prices to gain work, or, to rely on the reputation of their people and delivery.  Several firms have experienced winning work even when they knew they were one of the most highly priced bids.
• The search for more commodities for the future and depleting resources means that there is increased demand for firms to enter new geographies: this is difficult in terms of access, terrain, politics, red tape, infrastructure and both cultural and language differences.
• More firms are setting up joint ventures and alliances through which to go to market.  This raises interesting questions regarding the sharing of strategy and IP when it comes to the marketing and BD for these joint ventures and alliances.   The overwhelming feeling seems to be that it is worth the risk involved in sharing such information as joint ventures and allicances can have stronger brands than individual firms in a certain sector.  However, there will be occasions where a firm, partnering with you in one sector, competes with you in another using your own business development strategies or IP against you.  Firms must then rely on their team’s superior implementation and reputation.  Whilst it might be argued that innovation is being lost through standardised business development, the positive is that this is helping to lift the general quality of business development in this space. 

This is merely a snapshot into some of the issues Seldon Gill is researching at present for a more extensive report.  If you are not yet involved in this research and would like to be then please contact Graham Seldon – Managing Director on
03 8611 8103