Reputation is a strategic asset for businesses and leaders. Critical incidents can adversely affect a contractor's reputation. The expansion of smart technology, social media, and even drones have reduced available time to assess and respond to critical incidents. Contractors will learn to assess reputation risk and understand the benefits of proactive critical incident management to preserve reputation. A practical framework will be provided to teach Readiness, Response and Recovery. This "gap analysis" will help contractor's assess readiness for critical incidents. The session will overview 3 distinct phases of crisis management activities: Pre-Crisis, Time of Crisis and Post-Crisis. Representative questions will be provided to help contractor's outline a proactive crisis management plan. Practical pointers and lessons learned will be highlighted during the session.

Learning Objectives:

• Present practical strategies and key questions for Pre-Crisis, Time of Crisis and Post-Crisis actions.
• Highlight why high severity critical incidents threaten the reputation of leaders and organizations
• Discuss representative high severity critical incidents and highlight how crisis management can protect your business.
• Discuss practical pointers and lessons learned for effective critical incident response to minimize reputation risk.
• Provide a framework for a gap analysis or needs assessment of your organization's crisis management in the Readiness, Response and Recovery phases.

Data security is of paramount importance to any organization. From executives to administrators, today’s business professionals find themselves contemplating the vulnerability of their data in the cloud. Implementation of cloud solutions is a daunting task for risk managers, requiring due diligence and strategic change management. This presentation will highlight the risks of cloud technology and identify the resources and best practices to manage those risks. Learn the basics of converting processes to the cloud and how to secure proprietary data along the way. Attendees will walk away with the tools to achieve greater efficiency, cloud software security, and peace of mind in the cloud environments they employ.

Learning Objectives:

• Define the cloud, including current platforms, services, and devices
• Identify the biggest fears of data in the cloud
• Discuss case studies of how companies are successfully mitigating cloud threats
• Learn the technology tools and resources to manage and monitor cloud solutions

The severity of suicide in the construction industry has been reinforced by a CDC study that ranks construction as the top industry in number of suicide deaths and second-highest in suicide rate per 100,000 employees. While we have come a long way in elevating the conversation about incorporating mental wellness and suicide prevention into daily operations, we must now shift the focus to educate organizations with practical and impactful tools. This session will review the risk factors for suicide inherent to the construction industry, discuss some of the warning signs, provide tools and resources available on websites and various mental health organizations, and identify training and programs. We will identify ways to bring executive management, field, and safety operations plus Human Resources into an integrated team to combat this issue. Participants will learn how to build a caring culture with a toolbox of support resources.

Learning Objectives:

• Demonstrate through case studies how to effectively handle different types of injury claims for best outcome for the company and injured employee.
• Understand how a company’s finances and reputation can be impacted by an injury claim.
• Examine how these impacts can be minimized by changing the way that the injury is handled.
• Identify common pitfalls experienced in injury claims during the reporting, treatment and return to work process and how to avoid them.
• Provide best practices to be prepared to best deal with an injury if it happens including policies, procedures, supervisor training and provider relationships.

This session will explore how lean accounting for construction enables the accounting department to spend more time on strategic analysis and less time closing the books by providing meaningful financials that are closer to the month-end.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to apply Lean Accounting concepts and tools to your accounting process.
• Lean Accounting versus Accounting for Lean, what's the difference? Lean is not just for manufacturing/inventory. The principals of Lean which are applicable to Construction Accounting.
• Case study on reducing your closing date from the 20th to the 10th. Processes that need changing or elimination to reduce the closing time.
• Case Study to show how an overhaul of your General Ledger will reduce time and simplify the closing process.

This presentation will provide significant statistics regarding the level of activity in the U.S. heavy/highway construction industry, with special focus on major public projects taking place around the nation. Attention will also be given to the Federal Highway Trust Fund and measures being taken to increase funding for highway construction.

Learning Objectives:

• Synthesize information regarding current and prospective levels of highway investment in the U.S.
• Provide statistical detail regarding the geographic distribution of highway investment across the U.S.
• Summarize pending legislation that has the potential to shape the level and types of highway investment to take place in the future
• Summarize pending legislation that has the potential to shape the level and types of highway investment to take place in the future

Based on the best-selling book It's About TIME, this highly interactive, content-rich presentation offers industry-specific examples and stories. Attendees will learn leadership lessons from some the biggest and brightest contractors from around the world.

Learning Objectives:

• Why building your Team is so important and what goes into that process?
• Understanding Leadership Lessons from Best Practices of some the biggest and brightest Contractors from around the world.
• What is rewarded and why? What is the Window and the Mirror?
• What do the best Leaders do and why? I have been in Contracting since 1976.
• Why every Leader needs to understand how important Sales and Marketing is to their business?

All Subcontractor Default Insurance (SDI) policies state that the insured must provide a “satisfactory” proof of loss. But, how does an insured plan and respond to this ambiguous requirement? Although certain SDI carriers circulate a claim guidance document, it does not establish how the claim submission documents are to be used to produce a satisfactory proof of loss. The combined ambiguity of policy terms and guidance document lists have given way to a trial-by-error process that results in a lengthy, onerous RFI process. This presentation will provide unique insights, lessons learned, and methods and standards used to maximize recovery of costs when making a claim submission. It will also cover post default preparation, proof of loss expectations for direct costs, and what carriers expect to see when claiming indirect costs. Attendees will also learn about the most common mistakes and problems that GCs experience when faced with producing a proof of loss claim and real solutions.

Learning Objectives:

• How to prepare to manage and document losses resulting from a subcontractor default before the default happens.
• Maximize recovery of costs for internal labor under the policy.
• Maximize recovery of direct costs under the policy
• What to do when you haven't prepared to manage and document losses and you have experienced a subcontractor default.
• Maximize the costs if indirect costs under the policy to include acceleration costs, extended GCs and extended home office overhead.

By the end of 2016, an estimated 73% of companies across different industries will have invested in big data analytics. In the construction industry, however, a mere 6% of professionals are familiar with the concept of the Internet of Things (IOT). By innovating operations with analytics, contractors have the opportunity to be on the forefront of a revolution. This session will introduce techniques for data collection and analytic integration to fuel profitability. It will also present key areas of the business for implementation and teach accurate analysis methods to support positive organizational change.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate probabilities under uncertain operating conditions to make real-time decisions before problems occur
• Learn how predictive analytics can be incorporated in your company’s strategic, financial, and operational decisions
• Identify your organizational value drivers that should be emphasized and measured to power strategic success
• Define the financial professional’s role in analytic enhancement
• Discover how to incorporate market data, probabilities, and risk modeling tools such as Monte Carlo simulation to mitigate project liability and ensure profitability

All businesses share the goal of improving profitability while remaining responsive to customer expectations, and construction is no different. However, the ability to process the masses of data proves overwhelming. This session will focus on helping CFMs develop effective measurement tools and processes as a basis for monitoring and driving performance within key areas of their companies. Ultimately, by synchronizing some core guided analytics with intuitive dashboard technologies, businesses can achieve measurable impacts from payables, receivables, and inventory management to complex strategic and operational decisions about pricing and customer service levels.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn examples of KIP’s used by construction companies that impact/drive results.
• Participants will learn how to utilize existing data extracts to provide a systematic and objective approach to improve key drivers of working capital.
• Participants will gain insight into the development of key performance metrics and how to collect and manage underlying data to assist in performance assessment decision
• Participants will learn the types of available Business Intelligence (BI) technology commonly used to create performance dashboards typical in the construction industry.