Consultants wield considerable influence on the purchase of wastewater treatment equipment.  Your sales strategy needs to take into account the fact that these influences are concentrated and are dispersed disproportionately to the end user markets.

The multibillion-dollar air and water consulting industry in the U.S. is concentrated in a few states with satellite offices providing the broader coverage. This concentration is clearly visible in the continually updated McIlvaine publication, Consultant Profiles and People.

California is the leading state in wastewater design.  Earth Tech, AECOM, Jacobs, Brown and Caldwell, and Parsons are all in the top ten in terms of wastewater design revenues and all headquartered in California. Colorado is in second place since headquarters for CH₂M Hill and MWH are in this state.  With more than 25 percent of the design revenues and only 10 percent of the actual project activity, California has a concentration ratio of 2.5.  Colorado may be second in terms of revenues, but is by far the leader in terms of the concentration ratio which is 5.0.

Wastewater design firms include a handful of companies with wastewater revenues over one hundred million dollars.  Only 20 companies have wastewater revenues in excess of $15 million. There are 80 companies with revenues of more than $5 million.  Below this level there are approximately 1000 companies that supply wastewater design for small municipalities.  Some of these firms have only a principal engineer and one or two other employees. There are 16,000 municipalities with wastewater treatment systems.  This provides a ratio of one design firm for every 16 municipalities.

The air pollution design and consulting segment is presently dominated by the power plant activity.  Sargent & Lundy, Black & Veatch, Parsons, Washington Group, URS, Shaw, and Burns & McDonnell are leaders in this segment.  Since Black & Veatch and Burns & McDonnell are both headquartered in Kansas City, and since most of their employees are located there, Missouri is the leader in the air segment. Some of the other consultants have concentrations of people in several locations other than the home office (Shaw and the Washington Group).  Because Sargent & Lundy, a leader, has headquarters in Chicago, and Parsons and some of the other consultants also have offices in Illinois, it is the second largest state in terms of air pollution design revenues.

The discrepancy between consultant concentration and project construction presents a challenge to sales managers who are selling pollution control equipment and services. Manpower has to be assigned based on recognition of this discrepancy and the need to cover both the design firms and the owners.  In the wastewater industry, the design firms not only prepare the specifications but also are very influential in making the final decisions.  In the air sector, the role of the consultant in decision making is less strong but nevertheless significant.

The sales task is further complicated by the participation of both project managers and specialist at design companies. The project manager may be in a satellite office in one state and the specialist in the home office in another state or even in another satellite office.  The identification of specialists is made easier in Consultant Profiles and People by listing the titles of the papers given by these specialists at industry conferences.

The salesman’s task is also made easier by linking the database on the consultants to project databases in wastewater and power.

For more information on Consultant Profiles and People click here: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/water.html#NO37 .

Bob McIlvaine

847-784-0012

www.mcilvainecompany.com