TZL 1310

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

KIT MIYAMOTO, CEO, MIYAMOTO INTERNATIONAL, “Z TALK – ZEN, LIFE, BUSINESS” The Kaizen/LEAN management process was developed in Japanese industry decades ago and adopted by many leading companies such as Nike, Intel, and Toyota. It’s often used in the construction process to maximize efficiency and eliminate waste, but was never widely adopted by AEC businesses. The Kaizen process is not just a system to maximize growth and profit. It’s a value system, and it promotes company culture and shapes how the business sees itself in the community and society. Miyamoto, who leads a global engineering firm, discusses how he turned around a zero-profit company with flat growth to a high-profit company with rapid growth in 12 months by using the Kaizen system. He will also discuss how an African tribe in remote Ethiopia uses the concept of Kaizen to overcome drought which is caused by the $1.8 billion Gibe III dam system.

JEFF HURT, CHIEF EPIPHANY OFFICER, EMPOWERED EPIPHANIES, “THE INNOVATOR’S DNA” Innovation is the heartbeat of today’s economy. It’s also where leaders need to focus their attention, time, and resources to compete in today’s marketplace. So how do leaders become more innovative? Is innovation a talent from birth or something that can be learned and acquired? What are the traits of today’s innovative professionals? How do they think and behave? Why don’t they let traditional rules and the status quo stand in the way of their vision? What questions do they constantly use to benchmark their thinking? What are the skills needed for innovative thinking and behaviors? Innovators think and act differently. They don’t follow the status quo. Join Hurt to talk about it.

BILL MCCONNELL, CEO, VERTEX, “IF YOU’RE NOT MOVING FORWARD, YOU’RE MOVING BACKWARD” Growth of AEC companies, or lack thereof, is often dictated by overall market conditions. Corporate expansion through bull and bear markets alike requires a culture of growth. Vertex has averaged more than 20 percent year-over-year growth for nearly 25 years. Growth is a decision at Vertex, not a side effect. McConnell will discuss how Vertex makes a continued and concerted effort to grow every 90 days in accordance with a 10-year growth plan. He will review how Vertex’s growth plan contemplates a balance of noncyclical services (to hedge against recessionary cycles) with traditional AEC services (in order to take advantage of expansion cycles). McConnell will also cover Vertex’s approach to adding services and regional expansion, and the benefits and challenges that accompany a continued growth strategy.

SHAFAT QAZI, CEO & FOUNDER, BQE SOFTWARE, “HOW TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE” The BQE talk will look into the latest cloud technologies that are designed specifically for AEC firms. Qazi will look at some of these disruptive tools and discuss strategies for how every firm can easily implement or take advantage of streamlining workflows. Additionally, Qazi will guide attendees on the principles to improve your firm by igniting internal culture since happy employees means happy customers and increased profits. Join Qazi, CEO and founder of BQE Software, former engineer, recipient of Top 50 CEOs in the USA, Top 50 CEOs for Women and Diversity and Best Workplaces by Inc. Magazine , as he shows you five ways to improve culturally, improve your firm, and five ways to implement new technology to increase productivity.

RANDY REYNOLDS, from page 11

wrong job. This is the chaos of business development and marketing within many AEC firms. END THE CHAOS. Much of this chaos caused by the lack of a single source of truth for your customers, partners, proj- ects, and people is costing your business in lost productiv- ity every day. Worse yet, this suboptimal productivity may be leading to poor decision-making that could impact the top-line revenue in your business. “Cosential gave us access to the data we already had, but we had no single place to access it,” says Adrienne Ruebusch with Miller-Valentine Group. “Now we can look at it, analyze it, notice trends, and make smarter decisions for our business.” Fortunately, there are solutions in the market today to help end this chaos and bring order, control, speed, and efficiency to business development and marketing professionals. Unlike generic customer relationship management solutions that merely manage contact data and are built for product sales, Cosential Growth and

Relationship Management software was developed for project sales and the unique challenges faced by AEC businesses. Data silos are a reality all businesses deal with. But there are solutions in the market to help you get to that “single source of truth.” The results can be dramatic with some customers experiencing increases in productivity in key business development processes by up to 50 percent while increasing annual revenue by 1 percent. Getting a better handle on your data helps you better identify what your firm is truly good at, where you have the happiest customers, and where you are hitting the highest profits. RANDY REYNOLDS is vice president of marketing at Cosential. Contact him at rreynolds@cosential.com.

THE ZWEIG LETTER August 26, 2019, ISSUE 1310

Made with FlippingBook Annual report