2017 CI: State of the Industry Report

The slight but significant year-over-year change is a decline in respondents saying their typical margin is between 11% and 20% and an increase in those saying it’s between 21% and 30%. So that’s good, not world-beating, but good. NSCA recently launched a Project Contribution Simulator, which demonstrates how properly burdening labor, spearheading eroding margins and understanding true costs of doing business impact the bottom line. Wilson says it’s getting a lot of use.

“We’re hoping that people understand better the relationship between what their minimum marks should be on a project compared to what their overhead is. We’re hoping people run their businesses by the real numbers of their company. Now that we’ve got a tool that allows people to do that, I think maybe people are learning when to say ‘no’ and to say that this is our minimum mark.”