Bad Business Practice Killing The Thames Valley
CBS has well established and loyal business relationships in the Thames valley with electrical contractors we have with dealt with for years, and it is sad to see that some rogue contractors are damaging prospects of what little business there is by slashing prices to suicidal levels in an effort to gain work, and decimate companies who operate good business practice.
As much to blame are councils, and commercial sectors, who have forgotten good business practice and "partnerships" with contractors for the sake of ludicrously low pricing by a small minority of contractors willing to work at a loss for potential gain if more professional companies cease trading. Many of our clients have spent thousands at the request of clients, on accreditation with the likes of Constructionline, Chas, and Investors in People, only to find that good advice and quality installation is coming a very poor second to none and partnerships are now non existent. CBS has suffered recently as one of our principal contractors lost a 250k job by 60k, it is farcical.
The only way contracts can be won in this way is by cutting corners, make no mistake about it, and one way of achieving this is by employing poor quality, unmotivated, and potentially unskilled labour, to carry out work, and then look to claim or create unhidden extras. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch and the client ultimately loses out in the end, but it is hard to feel sorry for them when they have cruelly dumped a decent contractor for what appears a better alternative. They have acted like someone who in hard times, dumps their wife for a prostitute.
It may seem a bitter judgement, but the author of this article sincerely hopes that the contractors and clients who think they are being clever businessmen by partaking in high risk and irresponsible trading, catch a cold, go bust, and let the rest of us try to get on with running businesses that may make money again one day.
Tough economic times have forced us all to look to be more competitive and we have CBS and our clients have cut wages by 20% in many cases, but companies doing work for less than material cost is of benefit to no one.