For architecture and engineering firm leaders who have have set their sights to becoming a firm owner, the first step is simple but true: Watch how the current owners deal with the dozens of issues involved in ownership transition.  

Most importantly, understand how all the parts of the business operate and interrelate. Your firm should offer you broad enough responsibilities to provide you a wider view.

Familiarize yourself with the following:

Organizational structure

• Types of structure possible in professional service firms

• Responsibility and authority of top-level positions

• Authority of owners

Strategic planning

• Definition and purposes of strategic planning

• How it’s done

• The ownership role

Managing professionals as owner

• Evaluating performance and giving good performance reviews

• Devising effective incentive and motivational programs

• Evaluating the impact of personality on work habits and performance

Principal-level marketing

• The marketing process

• How to establish a structure for marketing

• Defining your firm’s message

• How to work with the marketing department and use their support effectively

Finances

• How your firm works as a business and financial entity

• How to read and interpret the firm’s balance sheet, income statement, and other financial documents

• Determining the value of your shares

• How to determine where improvements can be made in financial performance

Principals and projects

• How principals should be involved in projects

• Relationships between principals and project managers

• Understanding a project’s finances

• How to correct firm-wide project problems

• How to set a project’s price from a principal’s firm-wide contract considerations

• How to negotiate contracts

Total quality management

• Your firm’s quality control process and how to achieve improvement

• Your responsibility for quality

• Defining professional liability and an owner’s legal obligations

Industry trends and projections

• Major changes expected over the next decade

• The impact of current trends

• What your competitors are planning for the next decade

• How industry changes will affect your leadership

• How to develop long-term strategies and plans

A/E/C firm owners who fail to plan properly on ownership transition are leaving the firm exposed to the potential for undesirable outcomes - including significant loss of firm value, brand equity deterioration, and loss of market position. Instead of being another ordinary seminar teaching you how to develop a plan, PSMJ's A/E/C Ownership &  Leadership Transition Roundtable takes you through virtually every transition planning obstacle you will encounter (from affordability to leadership development and more) and how to overcome it.