Covering Business Development Topics in an Undergraduate Course

Suat Gunhan

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Conference: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Seattle, Washington
Publication Date: June 14, 2015
Start Date: June 14, 2015
End Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Teaching the Business Side of Construction
Tagged Division: Construction
Page Count: 9
Page Numbers: 26.413.1 - 26.413.9
DOI: 10.18260/p.23752
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/23752
Download Count: 438

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Suat Gunhan University of Texas, San Antonio

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Dr. Gunhan is an Associate Professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio

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Abstract

Covering Business Development Topic in an Undergraduate CourseAbstractConstruction firms have diverse business segments in which future graduates can be employedat. These graduates are expected to be the leaders in their positions in the segment they areemployed. Graduates of construction management or related fields, who choose constructioncareers, usually go on to work for construction companies. A construction engineer is expectedto possess technical and managerial skills. Technical content is well covered in constructioncurricula and it is considered a fundamental knowledge and skill. Technical skills play key rolefor graduates to step in to the industry. If the new hires nurture their technical capabilities withgood business skills in following years, they build successful careers. Construction business is apeople oriented business and employees from field engineers to executives are on the front linesserving clients on a daily basis. Due to credit-hour limitations, other than the ProjectManagement and Construction Capstone courses at the University of , allcore courses have fundamental technical content. Therefore, different teaching strategies wereput in place in order to cover leadership and business development contents. These are usuallythe subjects covered at graduate level studies but graduating students prefer directly working inthe industry and they build many managerial skills on the job.Business Development topic is covered in Project Management course. The content includesdefinition, distinction between marketing and sales in construction, service vs. productmarketing, client expectations from a construction entity, construction marketing, networking,professional organizations, and client maintenance. Even though the topic is broader than thecontent mentioned above, the author believes that the selected content provides basic andintroductory understanding of business development concepts in construction business. Particularexamples are provided in client maintenance section that explains how sensitive the projectprocess is in terms of client relationships. Students provided positive feedback for the contentbusiness development content. They especially benefitted from the examples given on clientmaintenance section.

Citation
Format

Gunhan, S. (2015, June), Covering Business Development Topics in an Undergraduate Course Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23752

TY - CPAPER
AB - Covering Business Development Topic in an Undergraduate CourseAbstractConstruction firms have diverse business segments in which future graduates can be employedat. These graduates are expected to be the leaders in their positions in the segment they areemployed. Graduates of construction management or related fields, who choose constructioncareers, usually go on to work for construction companies. A construction engineer is expectedto possess technical and managerial skills. Technical content is well covered in constructioncurricula and it is considered a fundamental knowledge and skill. Technical skills play key rolefor graduates to step in to the industry. If the new hires nurture their technical capabilities withgood business skills in following years, they build successful careers. Construction business is apeople oriented business and employees from field engineers to executives are on the front linesserving clients on a daily basis. Due to credit-hour limitations, other than the ProjectManagement and Construction Capstone courses at the University of , allcore courses have fundamental technical content. Therefore, different teaching strategies wereput in place in order to cover leadership and business development contents. These are usuallythe subjects covered at graduate level studies but graduating students prefer directly working inthe industry and they build many managerial skills on the job.Business Development topic is covered in Project Management course. The content includesdefinition, distinction between marketing and sales in construction, service vs. productmarketing, client expectations from a construction entity, construction marketing, networking,professional organizations, and client maintenance. Even though the topic is broader than thecontent mentioned above, the author believes that the selected content provides basic andintroductory understanding of business development concepts in construction business. Particularexamples are provided in client maintenance section that explains how sensitive the projectprocess is in terms of client relationships. Students provided positive feedback for the contentbusiness development content. They especially benefitted from the examples given on clientmaintenance section.
AU - Suat Gunhan
CY - Seattle, Washington
DA - 2015/06/14
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Covering Business Development Topics in an Undergraduate Course
UR - https://peer.asee.org/23752
DO - 10.18260/p.23752
ER -