Speaker Snapshot
Giovanni Marcelli: Risk Management for the Electrical Contractor
Tuesday, October 17, 2023 | 9:45am – 10:45am
Giovanni Marcelli is no stranger to IEC and is a long-time contributor to the electrical contracting industry. He has acquired a lot knowledge from clients through the years and feels it is important for him to give back to the industry that has served him and his family well. His SPARK presentation, Risk Management for the Electrical Contractor, is part of that effort.
After his training in electrical engineering in Italy, he emigrated to Canada and became an electrical contractor specializing in industrial projects. Seeing a need for greater accuracy and expediency, he developed the estimating software, Accubid.
“In 1982, I began developing a program that would be accurate, expedient, intuitive, and that worked for contractors,” he says. “Accubid was not a program for programmers. It was for estimators needing a tool that was easy to use and provided positive results.”
Giovanni believes that estimating is the foundation of electrical contracting. He says if you do not estimate the job with accuracy and details, you will not know your cost and will not sell the job for the right price. Furthermore, you will not have the information to build the job on time and on budget. Being a profound believer in educating contractors, he created an education department at Accubid and held hundreds of seminars over a period of 25 years.
“This was very unique at the time as we would train contractors not only on the use of the software but in understanding and adopting proven concepts and methodologies that would improve the contractors and make them more profitable,” he explains. “We always listened to clients for ways to improve the software and in the process, I also looked for ideas to improve their businesses. In 25 years, I had the privilege of training a lot of knowledgeable people on the use of the software and in the process, I gathered a lot of sound and proven information which allowed me to put together programs and seminars to help contractors do their job better and faster and be more profitable. Accurate and detailed estimating is essential and is one of the topics in my SPARK session,” he says.
Other topics include return on investment, risk vs. reward, definition of overhead, proper overhead recovery, adequate profit margin, labor risk ratio, risk mitigation, rainy day fund, and more. The information he shares is based on the street smarts of a lot of contractors he has met and worked with over the years,
“Contracting is a very hard business that requires a lot of commitment and knowledge,” Giovanni shares. “There is plenty of hard work and risk involved. The wise man learns from somebody else’s mistakes. I have seen a lot of mistakes made, and I have made my fair share. I would like to save many other contractors from making the same mistakes. I feel that the good Lord has given me the opportunity and ability to learn from many, many contractors, and I feel compelled to bring that knowledge back to the industry for the benefit of fellow contractors.”