This article looks at some of the departments and organizational structure of a civil construction company. It talks about the people behind the scenes and their roles and responsibilities.
All around us we see infrastructure such as buildings, roads, highways, parks etc. It is the job of a civil construction company, to develop this infrastructure that we love so dearly and is a part of our every day lives. In this article we will look more into the organizational setup of a construction company. We will take a brief overview of the people behind the scenesand what their roles are.
At the top of the construction company there mostly is a chairman. His job is to offer overall guidance to the company in terms of strategy, head the annual general meetings of the company and look at key decisions for positioning of the company.
After the chairman comes the managing director. The managing director plays a more active role in the daily processes of the company. Top managers of different departments usually report directly to the managing director and keep him updated on the performance of their respective departments. The managing director has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders and is responsible for the profit, loss and overall growth of the company.
After the managing director comes the top-level management of the company. In larger companies there may also be a vice president or president as a link in between to the managing director. In such cases the top-level management reports to the president and then the president to the managing director. The top-level managers usually head individual departments. Some of these departments are sales, accounts, projects, purchase, hr etc.
The sales department would usually have a sales head at the top with sales managers and business development managers under him, reporting directly to him. The sales teams job is to develop new business for the verticals of the company and to maintain relationships with their customers.
In construction this may involve interaction with top builders for work, advertising activities, gathering new project information from industry magazines and journals etc. The sales head ensures that the order book is maintained with sufficient new business. He also motivates and disciplines his team to achieve targets and perform better.
The accounting department as the word suggests maintains the proper accounts of the construction company engaged in construction engineering. They maintain books of account, ledgers, payments received and payments made etc. In construction accounting is a very important aspect. The number of transactions is large and very dynamic. Thus having a solid accounts team is essential.
Moreover taxation in construction is complex and varied. A good accounts team ensures that all taxes are being accounted for properly and deposited on time. They also maintain projected cash flow requirements and prepare balance sheets and profit and loss statements of the company. The accounts department consists on accountants, chartered accountants, auditors etc.
As you can see we have barely covered 20% of the organization structure and there are already so many people involved. The sheer manpower required to complete infrastructure projects is huge. Large construction companies employ thousands of people across various departments just to manage their activities. Not all companies have the same organizational structures. They differ according to the companys own management style and distinct characteristics. We will take a deeper look into the other departments such as tendering, projects, purchase, human resources etc. of the construction companys structure in our next articles.