Navigating the Economic Downturn

With the U.S. economy officially moving into a recession, Mark Zweig, president and CEO of the market consulting firm, ZweigWhite, based in Natick, Mass., offers a short list of suggestions to help A/E firms successfully paddle through the current economic downturn:

• Strengthen the firm's financial reporting and forecasting resources to be able to provide the most up-to-date information possible.
• Re-analyze market sectors. Zweig confers with the general consensus in the industry that hotel and office construction will be down, but public sector work and aviation should remain solid markets.
• Re-evaluate current staffing levels. It may be necessary to let high-level people go, in addition to drafters and administrative staff.
• Cut benefits. Although the trend had been to provide more generous compensation packages, now the first priority of A/E firms is to protect its profits.
• Re-evaluate marketing strategies, looking carefully at e-marketing which is a quickly emerging trend.

For more information, log on to the ZweigWhite web site at www.zweigwhite.com.