6
P R O F I L E
Transparent intentions: Allen Roth President of JBCI, a small, but venerable, repair and restoration firm based in Philadelphia.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
I n 1984, Allen Roth joined JBCI as a project engineer. He advanced to vice president in 1992 and then became pres- ident in 2015. “Our hiring model is to select a graduate student and train them into our culture and engineering model,” Roth says. “This has proved successful. Our principals and senior man- agement teamhave been with us for 25, 13, 12, and 10 years. While there are always hurdles, we promote a creative, fun atmosphere that allows for a work/family balance, flexibil- ity, and, ultimately, employee stability.” A CONVERSATION WITH ALLEN ROTH. The Zweig Letter: What are the three to four key business performance indicators that you watch most carefully? Do you share that information with your staff? Allen Roth: Our business relies heavily on the business de- velopment process and converting proposals into contracts to grow. We’re achieving significant growth in our employ- ment and net revenue over the past five years. We watch and monitor the backlog per full-time equivalent/pipeline per
full employee, time equivalent, proposals by project man- ager, and the proposal conversion rate. We must monitor project financial performance on a recurring basis through the current project effort versus budget. This information is shared with the principals on a monthly basis. TZL: How far into the future are you able to reliably pre- dict your workload and cash flow? AR: Being a small firm, it’s very important to closely mon- itor our workload and cash flow. Our business is evolving through new initiatives to increase proposal, contract, rev- enue, and, ultimately, cashflow generation. We’ve generated new customized financial models/staffing models for up to four years into the future, but we use this as more of a guide than for actual decisions. We can reliably predict our work- load and cash flow a maximum of 12 months based on our historical performance and financial metrics. TZL: How much time do you spend working “in the busi- ness” rather than “on the business?” AR: Being president of a small professional services firm re-
THE ZWEIG LETTER Ju
Made with FlippingBook Annual report