Research Balfour Beatty plc Free Essay Example, 2000 words

(Wikipedia, 2006) Balfour Beatty acquired Mansell constructions in October 2002. Mansell had to overcome its fund deficit of 50 million and had shareholder funds of 20 million. The deal with Balfour Beatty gave a new lease of life to the company and it had acquired 42 million during the merger process. Mansell is now one of the subsidiaries of Balfour Beatty which focuses on sectors such as social housing, education, hospitals, defence and telecoms. It should be noted that 73 % turnover of the company comes from partnering contracts and 89 % were repeat businesses (taken from the company’s website). So clearly, Mansell has focused on lower risk segments and has had utmost priority in retaining its client base and by and large, it has been quite successful. In 1998,a taskforce, led by Sir Egan came up with some proposals to improve the standards of the construction industry and expressed concerns over non-realization of full potential of the Industry. Some of the proposals the taskforce came up with were 1) Overall construction cost and time should be reduced by 10 % 2) Defects in the projects should be reduced by 20 %. 3) The industry should focus more on strategic partnerships and not continue competitive tendering for projects. 4) Safe working conditions must be provided to the employees. (Ralph Morton, 2002) Task 2 Major players in the UK construction industry Carillion plc: Strengths A company which has been in the market for long and has been a subsidiary organization of Tarmac industries plc, and which was separated from the group in the year 1999 has been achieving a huge turnover right from the year of its inception. We will write a custom essay sample on Research Balfour Beatty plc or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The revenue acquired by the company in the year 2005 was almost 40.8 million pounds. In February 2006, the company expanded its construction base by taking over Mowlem plc. The whole group is expected to garner a combined profit of almost 4.1 billion pounds. (Sarah Peace, 2006) Weaknesses Carillion, like many other mojors, has compromised safety for profits. After the Hatfield crash, an accident which had totally changed the functioning of the rail industry in U. K, the media exposed a shocking report issued by a subsidiary of Carillion to relax the rules on defects on tracks. The report went this way†¦. . We are currently being inundated with defects of this kind. ..however it is not practical or cost-effective to cut all of them out of the track immediately when some of them can afford to wait until they are re-tested’ Another incident which went in favor of the above mentioned argument was when an unmanned runaway went down a steep track killing 4 workers and injuring 3.This unfortunate incident raised serious apprehensions on the firm’s claims that safety of its employees is it’s first and foremost priority and everything else only seconded it.