TIMING IS CRITICAL
By Keith Wayne, CEO & President
Getting older means I have a lot of memories and experiences to draw from. I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night, but I can conjure up any imaginable scene from our past business experiences in a second’s notice. One major theme from my business experience that I want to share is around the subject of timing.
Our Executive Team and Management Groups have been diligent in planning and executing strategies. In our business planning cycles, we must decide what our strategy is AND the timeline we intend to make it happen. Timing is critical. Timing a business strategy is somewhat different than timing the purchase of a product or an investment within your retirement plan.
At WB, we have intentionally tried to focus our strategies on the future needs of our target customers. One example of our intentionality is adding Design-Build capabilities to our service offerings for the heavy industrial and manufacturing markets.
To time our ability to support these large projects, we must time our company’s human capacity growth. In many cases, this involved us building teams that are regionally located in an area where we believe the industrial building growth will occur. We want to be ready when the buildings are announced. We try to be a bit ahead of the need, so we have the resources prepared when the call comes. So, if we have timed our business development lead-in appropriately, along with our construction services capacity, then most of our work will be won through negotiated construction contracts.
I think what I most want our team mates to know is that while we will not always get the timing perfect, we must always strive to do so. We can’t rewind the watch and restart at a different time, but we can evaluate how the actual events timed out regarding our strategy. We must continually analyze our results and learn from the past to prepare better for the next strategy.
Here is the one key take away around timing: preparation and planning for the Boom Times is normally performed during recessions and vice versa. Planning will likely will not get easier especially with the speed of our lives and business getting faster but just remember that timing is critical.
