What is the value of an installer’s work?
20 JUNE 2022 ANTONI RUIZ
Published at “C of Electric Material”
There is one issue that all professionals in the energy and fluid installations and infrastructures sector (of water, gas, electrician, weathering installer, telecommunications, pressure equipment, etc.) are constantly asking questions, which is kept as a mantra, decade after decade in Spain; it is a subject that is always mentioned in the collective: what economic value does, or should it bring, the material that can be used to run the facilities mentioned above?
This question makes sense because there is another important one behind it: what is the value of the work of an installer/installer company? This is a key point, because there is a lot to talk about and there is no fixed rule where one or the other is positioned.
Firstly, if we base ourselves purely on the provision in terms of service to the community and society in general, we can say that installers are determinants. As was seen in the past in a pandemic, essential for the development of our lives in the western world, as we have designed them.
If we speak in economic terms, the installer brings high economic value to society in the creation of wealth in the country. In addition, as installer or autonomous companies, they contribute to the payment of taxes and employ people.
The installer must give value to the workforce, to its technical capabilities.
The installer must give value, and price, to its technical input, administrative management and other tasks.
Installer Workforce Cost and Other Variables
Turning to the issue, on the margins of the discount of fungiable materials, most professionals have calculated the cost/time price of the technician by combining several scenarios for decades, with respect to the net margins and the profitability of their company/as.
At the moment, however, as everything is developing in the electricity sector with digitisation, it is not a question of seeing a major change in this formula, but of adapting. Differential biases are not raised here, as as a high value rule “the chain of manufacture, distribution and installation, up to the end customer has worked and must continue to operate in this regard”, providing what each of them can best do, with a balance in the system so that all products and services flow into the channel.
In this respect, it is unthinkable to refer and maintain stock of all products on the market by installers, as well as for the direct sale of the manufacturer to the end customer, with millions of products used in the facility. Both the installer and the manufacturer must be aware that this function is performed, and very well, by professional distributors using logistics adapted to product knowledge and proximity, with services such as electronic commerce, or delivery at zero kilometre, among other 21st century techniques.
The discount of the material;
In other words, the equation on the labour costs of qualified technicians, technical input, administrative management and indirect costs must be the main benchmark for calculating the margin of the real value required of an installer company’s income.
Material discount has always entered the installer margins.
Discounting the material used in a work or project is also part of the remuneration of the professional; that has been the case so far.
Added to this is the obtaining of a variable with the discount of the material, which has been the usual one in many cases, as these provide margins that allow the final price to be adjusted; but always as an added value to the final customer, and in this way the whole channel adds and reinforces a sectoral consolidation that goes at full pace and expanding.
I think that, together, we are stronger and better technically and professionally