Case Study - TE Surveying Co 2020 PDF

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Case Study: TE Surveying Co. TE Surveying Co (TES) is a private company that undertakes surveying for building construction. Construction surveying is undertaken by building companies for reasons such as: understanding the legal boundaries of a property; identifying and locating manmade structures (such as cables and pipes) on a site; identifying and recording natural topographical features as watercourses, elevation and contours on a site; and, dividing vacant land into discrete lots for development and sale. Surveying work is important in planning decisions, real estate contracts and land title, and underpins commercial arrangements such as loan applications and contracts. TES undertook (and continues to undertake) the following types of surveys:       

Cadastral Surveys: establishing/reestablishing real estate boundaries Greenfield Surveys: Establishing the features of an undeveloped site to assist planners and regulators with development decisions Estate Surveys: Establish the topographical features of a new estate, and subdivide the estate into lots Infill: Similar to Greenfield or Estate surveying, but carried out on urban land that is to be redeveloped (Green Square in Sydney being an example) Strata Surveys: A survey to establish the private lots and common areas in a strata scheme Lot Surveys: A survey to confirm the boundaries of a property, particularly prior to a mortgage being agreed Lease Surveys: Measuring the lettable space inside a property to determine the rentable value

TES is based in Prahran, in Melbourne’s inner South-East. The company is owned by Tom Edgar, who founded the company in 1995. Tom is the Managing Director. Tom Edgar and his wife, Lauren, are the Directors of TES. From modest beginnings, when Tom set the business up with a single employee, TES has grown into a business with 19 employees. The company’s success is based on TES’ reputation for high quality work and reliability. The scale of TES allows the company to bid for and handle larger jobs, beyond the scope of the many one and two person businesses who operate in the sector. The company’s reputation, scale and Tom’s very good contacts in the construction industry, allows TES to charge a premium for its services. Tom Edgar was a well-reputed Surveyor in the construction industry when he set up his own operation. The high quality and reliability of Tom’s work, now competitive advantages of TES, were hallmarks of his work. Tom grew his business, and by 2005 had 10 employees. The staff included an Administration Officer, a Registered Surveyor (Tom is also a Registered Surveyor), 7 Surveyors and a Junior Surveyor. The Registered Surveyor is an experienced Surveyor who has been licensed as having the skills and experience to authorise survey results. This is a regulatory requirement. Junior Surveyors are employees who work under the supervision of experienced surveyors until they achieve their full licence. By 2005, Tom found most of his time was taken up with tasks related running the business and business development. Much of the day-to-day administration, such as

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processing time sheets, preparing invoices and preparing payroll, had passed to the Administration Officer, but Tom was still required to roster staff to jobs, visit sites to prepare quotes, handle enquiries or complaints from customers, and to handle difficult technical questions for staff on site. (Some of the technical questions were handled by Richard Green, the other Registered Surveyor, but most of them were still directed to “the Boss”, along with any other non-technical questions). Tom’s company continued to grow. By 2015 he had 22 employees. Of the 22 employees, 20 were Surveyors. Christine Barnes, the original Administration Officer, was now Office Manager, and her role was supported by a relatively new Administration Assistant, Karen Wu. The technical staff consisted of:    

Richard Green, Senior Registered Surveyor; Two Senior Project Surveyors 13 Project Surveyors; and, 3 Junior Surveyors.

All staff, except for Karen Wu, reported into Tom. Karen reported to Christine. Tom was keen to continue growing TES, but, given the nature of Surveying work, felt that there was little scope available for the company to grow in the Melbourne construction market. He could see opportunities in the Mining industry, with billions of dollars being invested by mining companies into their Australian operations as commodity prices soared. State Governments and Commonwealth Governments were also starting to lift spending on key Infrastructure projects, such as roads, heavy rail and light rail. This appeared to be a lucrative opportunity, with large contracts better suited to a firm like TES than the many one- and two-man survey companies in the industry. Tom’s difficulty was that he needed time to undertake business development. However, he already worked long days in his company. Whilst the Registered Surveyor and the two Senior Surveyors now handled some of the technical questions that arose, Tom was the decision-maker for all key decisions in his company, and was also continued to receive a lot of questions about day-to-day operations. Tom prepared most quotes, and authorised all decisions relating to revenue or expenditure. With two Primary School aged girls, Tom did not want to give up more valuable family time in order to achieve business growth. Tom felt stuck between his business ambitions and the busy-ness of his current operations. You are a HR consultant operating your own practice. Tom Edgar contacts you and explains his dilemma at a meeting. Ted offers, and you have accepted, the job. Tom has also given you a copy of his current organisation chart.

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Your task: Prepare a report for Tom Edgar providing him with a summary of your analysis, and recommendations as to the actions he can take to resolve the problem of having too little time to devote to Business Development. ***** Considerations in developing your report You are to draw on models from the first 4 weeks of the course to assist you to prepare your report. Which models might help you to analyse the problems? Which models might help you to set out a change process for Tom Edgar? Which models might work well together in arriving at a recommended solution? Your report should include answers to some or all of the following questions:      

Why does Tom Edgar’s problem exist? What actions can you recommend to overcome the problems? What change process is appropriate? Who will be affected by the change you propose? In what way will they be affected? How do you expect they will react? What problems do you foresee in the practical implementation of your proposal? How do you propose to overcome those implementation problems?

To provide practical recommendations in this case, you are going to have to make some logical inferences that go beyond the stated facts of the case.

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