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Essay: Exploring HDR’s Balanced Scorecard, Environmental Sustainability, and Strategy Map

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  • Published: 1 April 2019*
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Introduction

Henningson Engineering Company in Omaha, Nebraska was founded in 1917 by Henning H. Henningson. In 1930’s, the Rural Electrification Act gave new opportunities that brought in Willard Richardson.  The HDR is one of the top global firms that specializes in construction, engineering, environment, and architecture services with workers functioning in 200 places throughout the world (HDR, 2018).

“HDR’s headquarters is out of Omaha, Nebraska with 225 locations around the globe and nearly 10,000 workers” (HDR, 2018). They are broken down by corporate groups and areas.  The business groups consist of wastewater, water, Federal, Transportation.  The consumers are made of Government, Federal, States, Cities, DOTs, DNRs, Municipalities, and Industrial/Power Entities.  They offer services primarily to cities and municipalities; but, they are not restricted to these types of consumers.  HDR was granted projects by offering consumers with project proposals or actually elected as an individual source service provider (HDR, 2018).

HDR’s Balanced Scorecard

Financial

HDR deals with customers directly and offers expert and well-organized services.  The services are priced based on man-hours with the cost that are acquired such as construction costs, supplies, etc.  They also strive to give the most excellent services at the best rates probable.  The company performs sustainability and green structure.  By using recycled products and electronic filing software allowing the company to keep rates low and it also helps the environment.  This type of service (QuickScore, 2018)s is not paid all at once. It is billed during the course of the project.  Since each project is different, the rates and times will vary.

Customer

The company depends on their customers’ interactions to attain projects.  In this business, it is not only vital for the engineers to be certified and very well experienced in their field, but also have good relationships with their client connections as well.  When a Request for Qualifications or a Request for Proposal comes out for a coming project, the customers will only hand-pick a number of engineering firms to send them to.  These are generally sent to firms that they already accustomed with, by word of mouth or references. In this business, friends tend to hire someone they trust or friends.

HDR creates and maintains durable connections by demanding project managers and engineers to go to region workshops, conferences, do client dinners, and client visits.  This allows the project associates to get to be acquainted with their clients on a professional and personal basis

Internal Business

The engineering industry, most firms concentrates on how much projects or works they can succeed; in spite of this they do not continuously offer extremely trained staff and services.  To be a solid competitor in this business, HDR increases to put the customers’ requirements as the first priority.  Doing right by their customers is what keeps them on respectable terms and winning projects in the future.  They also make it a priority to help assist the customers with obtaining the finance they require to get the projects complete.  They also deliver options that they can meet the customers’ needs that are suitable within their finance.  This occasionally will contain extending a project out over a period of time by cutting it down into special assignment instructions.  This lets the customers finance for potential improvements.

Learning and Growth

With technology continually altering and cities rising, it is imperative for this type of business to remain in front of the game. In direction to do this, they must have highly advanced and well-informed individual on their workforce.  They accomplish this by employing only the greatest skilled people (Strategy Management Group, 1998-2017). They offer external and internal education to retain their crew sharp, and on the cutting edge with the latest and utmost knowledge.  Even though this procedure it can be expensive, it is what creates them a sturdy player in the marketplace.  customers want a firm that is highly trained qualified and knows how to get the work finished right the first time.  in the long run, it also saves them money for the firm.

Significant Costs

Some significant costs that HDR incurs are:

• Environmental – When doing business with these sorts of services, the physical environment plays a big function in the timeline of a project.  Weather conditions can be a huge contributing influence on time setbacks and complications.  For example: when offering services for a water treatment building in replacement of equipment, there is a number of items that could interrupt the procedure such as wet weather events such as flooding.

• Employment – Benefit Packages and Salaries

• Marketing – Overhead Time (Non-billable hours charged), Printing and Binding, and Proposal production

• Technology – Hardware and Software needed

• Training – Internal and External training for employees

As customers persist to advance their technical competencies, there are methods that HDR is capable to cut back on the marketing expenses like electronic proposal selections.  This permits them to save money on printing, on the other hand, it also helps them be a more maintainable business.  The can use double-sided printing and consume recyclable supplies as well as to helps cut back on these expenses.  HDR also has offered on-site printing abilities which save money on using external services.

HDR proposes internal training offered by experienced upper level managers.  This lets them to provide training to bigger numbers of employees’ at once at a central location.  This keeps the tuition costs and travel expenses down.

Technology costs are a main expense and usually one of the pricier expenses as well.  HDR purchases updated software and hardware and they are on lease terms.  This gives them to stay up to date with the newest and greatest versions, but without the cost of buying outright.  Leasing is a more cost-effective method.

Strategy Map

The strategy map is a technique, created on the four viewpoints of the balanced scorecard, that ties the four outlooks in a cause-and-effect diagram. By integrating points for each strategic theme, it is likely to map HDR’s general strategy.  Each point inside strategic theme effects the next, binding everything joined as one balanced strategy.

Sustainability

HDR’s specialists use an established methodology, Sustainable Return on Investment to recognize creativities that will achieve the project goals, enhance the total value of the project and position the project with the finest possible business case for endorsement or funding. This is completed by defining the full price of a project by giving financial principles to all the costs and benefits. HDR’s development offers decision backing to help converse the full value of your project by retaining financial value on supportable enterprises, containing the direct, indirect/non-cash costs and benefits.

Sustainability is not just about giving the right thing for the societies and atmosphere. SROI gives a company a case for manufacturing justifiable decisions for the customers’ projects (HDR, 2018).

Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis (CVP)

“CVP analysis, as it is occasionally known, is a way of examining the relationship among your fixed and variable costs, your volume (in terms of units or in terms of dollars), and your profits (Wolters Kluwer, 2018)”.

“Cost-volume-profit analysis is a process for examining how marketing decisions and operating decision influence short-term profit based on an understanding of the relationship between variable costs, fixed costs, unit selling price, and the output level” (Davis, 2017, p. 88).   HDR’s services are measured by variable costs, since each project is estimated precisely to that projects requirements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the company could be strong competitor, with more education on advancing in the accounting techniques they would continue to succeed in business.

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