Executive Summary

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Problem

Key state-owned and private companies in Africa have seen hundreds of artisans, technicians and engineers make their exit over the last three years through retirement and relocations this condition is tremendously true for structural engineering expertise and not enough professionals are being hired or qualify to make up for the shortfall.

Bridge Engineering work is seasonal and only a small portion of consultants procure the work periodically every 3 years. Most Bridges Engineers are not business minded- dread the costs and admin that comes with running businesses, and those that are not freelancing are binded by conflict-of-interest contract clauses which dont allow them to follow where the work is (work for other consultants who procured work). This causes the professional to bridge ofemployment contracts activities by conducting the work in confidence without their validation signsigning atures off their work, thus forcing the consultants also commit fraud by presenting the completed work as their ownon the approvals and validations of their work which compromises the industry and the engineers professionalism.

Solution

ExpertsontheGo (Pty) Ltd (T/A ExpertsontheGo) provides world-class virtual hub for structural engineering expertise anywhere and anytime. The company aims to form limited liability partnership with professionally registered and upcoming structural engineers as freelancers through opportunity-based project contracts and deliver innovative approaches to structural engineering services which are affordable. The company will leverage on the collective expertise to procure and enter long-term contracts centered on excellent service and cost effectiveness. We believe that we can service this limited market better than larger consulting companies and we have better service packages at a more reasonable cost than existing competitors of equal size.

The current situation of the company:

Operates within the Civil Engineering industry.

Offers comprehensive structural engineering services to clients. Our services fall into these main categories: public sector, consulting and construction engineering services.

The companys main clients are state owed enterprises, lager consulting companies and real estate companies.

Main offices in South Africa, Johannesburg. There are no physical facilities or office spaces, and the company expects to begin offering its services in January of Year 1.

The company expire to secure private investors and does not plan to go public.

The Market

The structural engineering industry in Africa has been growing at a very fast rate for the past ten years. According to the SAICE article, the industry has averaged approximately 22% per year over the past five years. The civil engineering consulting business consists of a number of other individually speciallisation consultants (i.e. in Roads, Traffic, Drainage, Water and Sinitation etc.) which range from small-medium enterprises to major international name-brand firmscompanies procuring thousands of projects in Africa alone. ExpertsontheGos main source of work will be procured from standalone structural engineering projects obtained through the public tender process. Many engineering projects employ legal regulations which require all structural components of the overall civil engineering project to be designed and monitored during construction by professionally registered structural engineers, therefore work will also be procured through sub-consulting agreements.

The majority of the small and medium enterprises cannot afford to employ the Specialized Professionally Registered Structural Engineers on a permanent basis because the projects with a structural component are seasonal and not enough for all consulting firms to procure. Therefore based on the scarcity of the Professional Structural Engineers there a need for these engineers to freelance, hence in partnership with ExpertsontheGos these engineers expertise will be available to the market anywhere and anytime at an affordable rate.

ExpertsontheGo also considers diversifying the market and develop new products through the provision of Project Management, Quality Management Establishments, Panel and Non-executive Board Members services rendered by Professionally registered Structural Engineers to test potential markets

Competition

The existing ExpertsontheGo (Pty) Ltd industry competition comes in these three main forms described below.

Freelancing Structural Engineers: ExpertsontheGo members partners will be easier to access, and offers more reliable and efficient services than over-committed freelancorsfreelancers who in addition to the load of work they procure are frequently caught up in administrations on their offerings.

Physical Companies QSEs and SMEs: ExpertsontheGo is cheaper due to no overheads costs.

Larger Consulting Companies with structures division within company: ExpertsontheGo is cheaper, easier to access without long procedural paperwork.

Though there is potential for other businesses to copy the model when it proves successful, ExpertsontheGo has the ability to continue to offer the service at a lower cost due to its experience, proven and painted technology.(currently copied will have to work hard on this).

Marketing Plan

Unique Selling Proposition

An engineering virtual hub which provides world-class structural engineering expertise anywhere and anytime.

Proposition Statement

For all engineering and architectural firms in Africa who require structural engineering sub-consultant services, ExpertsontheGo offers a competitive and economical option. Projects may be delegated to ExpertsontheGo directly or arrangements can be made to supplement and assist their own in-house staff.

Pricing Strategy

Industry rates for professional, inter-mediate candidates, junior candidate and graduate structural engineers are R3500 ($189), R3000 ($162), R2100 ($113) and R1850 ($99.7) respectively. These rates are average selling rates manipulated by consulting companies to remain competitive. ExpertsontheGo is able to offers in comparable rates close to half the preceding amounts because we have no overheads and supporting services costs which are the usual culprit to higher rates of consulting companies, and this significantly helps us to offer less expensive rates to our Clients.

The billing rates are not negotiated. One exception to this rule would be for not-for-profit organizations where marketing can be traded for services in kind.

Promotional Strategy

ExpertsontheGo will be using the Internet extensively in our sales promotion and to drive traffic to our website. Together with a well targeted direct e-mail, google and linked-in campaign, we will make all the major players in the marketplace aware of our presence.

We will focus our limited advertising budgets to promote community sponsored and industry events (ECSA, SAICE, ISE etc.). We will also offer technical services at discount rates to non-profit organizations. When travelling to remote communities, we will contact the local principals in elementary and high schools offering them a speaker on structural engineering as a career choice.

Operations Plan

Location

A virtual company based predominately online hosted on a reliable website and secure virtual drives, with one physical address in Johannesburg where the managing director resides. There are other addresses across the country, in strategic provinces required for public tendering purposes in accordance with the government Central Supplier Database (CSD).

Inventory

ExpertsontheGo offers Clients a expertise in design structural software i.e. Prokon, MIDAS etc. and drafting software i.e. 2D and 3D Auto-CAD. These will be purchased at a significant discount from the owners through a pay as you use licenses.

Employees will bring their own personal computers at every project take-on with the benefit of them maintained by the company. Printing companies will be used for all print work reimbursed through the project disbursement budget. Hardware will purchased for every employee when required and all Software including that required for a virtual business operations will be provided by the company.

Employees

The score structural engineering services will be provided by partners and ExpertsontheGo permanent staff will be minimal consisting only of the Managing Director and two inhouse admin personnel. We will approach structural engineers for partnership through recruiting companies and platforms like Linked-in, and professional and administration training will be provided for all partners and employees to ensure effective operations.

ExpertsontheGO will require internal project and quality management support to ensure that quality and efficiency of the projects delivery is controlled internally. We will recruit the required personal according to the companys affordability and growth and invest in continuing education to fulfill this need. We have accounted for this in the financial plan. We will be outside sourcing account, financing and tender procurement services and this too is accounted for in the financial plan.

The Managing Director graduated from University of Cape Town with BSc. Civil Eng. and in 2008, and Quantic Business School in 2023 with an EBMA. It is in the plans to only recruit managers with credible qualification, especially professionally registered engineers to manage engineering projects.

Day to day Operations

How everyone will be managed

Financial Considerations

The virtual company asset requirements are Hardware and Software required to run a virtual company effectively and efficiently, this will form the largest cost towards the financials. The financial costs is includes tangible expenses by company members which enable them to work remotely and meet occasionally. The rest of the finances is needed to support operations (company administrations, trainings, support services etc.) until revenues reach an acceptable level. We expire for some of the companys liabilities to come from outside private investors and management investment, however, we have obtained (we could provide a funding table with details) in current borrowing from First National Bank of South Africa, the principal to be paid off in two years. A long-term loan of (we could provide a funding table with details) through SA Revenue Bank will be paid off in ten years.

The company expects to reach profitability in year one and does not anticipate any serious cash flow problems. We conservatively believe that during the first three years, average profitability per month per segment will be about R120,000 (equivalent of $8000). We expect that about one to two projects per month will guarantee a break-even point.

Please prepare Operations Plan and Financial Plan & Statements for the above engineering business profile and also include research references