MANAGEMENT SKILL

DEVELOPMENT
NCD CONSULTANTS (PVT) LTD

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PREFACE
It is very important to have a sound knowledge in management of an organization to increase
the productivity of that organization. This case study, about the management skills in NCD
consultants (PVT) Ltd, gave us a great opportunity to apply our knowledge in a real life
situations.
This report includes five chapters which describes the details of the company and its
management skills.
The first chapter comprises of information about NCD consultants (PVT) Ltd including its
main functions, complete projects and organizational structure. The second chapter contains
details about its current situation, specially companys strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats. Also the current managerial skills in fields such as human resources, document
management and performance management are described in detail in this chapter.
The third chapter gives information about positive and negative factors that affect for the
efficiency of the company which had been identified during the case study. Chapter four
contains recommendations to mitigate those negative factors and fifth chapter contains the
summary of the case study on management skills in NCD consultants (PVT) Ltd.

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Table of Contents
PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................................ii
BACKGROUND/ CONTEXT........................................................................................................................ 1
1.1.

Basic information about NCD consultants (pvt) ltd................................................................. 1

1.1.1. Information of the company ................................................................................................. 1

1.2. Organizational Structure........................................................................................................... 2
OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION ............................................................................................... 5
2.1. SWOT Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 5
Strengths ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Weaknesses ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Opportunities .................................................................................................................................. 6
Threats............................................................................................................................................. 6
2.2. Human resource Management ................................................................................................... 9
2.3. Hiring and Recruitment ............................................................................................................... 9
2.4. Compensation and Benefits ...................................................................................................... 10
2.5. Training and Development ........................................................................................................ 10
2.6. Performance Management ....................................................................................................... 10
2.7. Document Management ........................................................................................................... 10
2.8. Financial Management .............................................................................................................. 11
FINDINGS ............................................................................................................................................... 11
3.1. Facts that help to improve the efficiency .................................................................................. 12
3.2. Facts that negatively affect the efficiency of the company ...................................................... 13
RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION ................................................................................................... 14
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 16

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BACKGROUND/ CONTEXT
Before approaching to the management skills in the selected company it is better to
understand the nature of the company and the work carried out by the company. With current
economic development construction field is an upcoming sector which will be directly
contribute to the economic development. Although there are higher amount of repudiated
construction companies, there are very few repudiated well known consultancy firms among
the construction field. NCD Consultants can be recognized as a one of those best consultancy
firms. Hence because of that it is very important maintain their quality of work by continues
evaluations as according to their request as the Zircon Consultant we accepted to evaluate
and have a detailed overview of their present organizational management system.

1.1. Basic information about NCD consultants (pvt) ltd

NCD Consultants was established in 1997 with the purpose of providing consultancy services
in the fields of structural engineering, architectural design, electrical engineering, building
services engineering, quantity surveying and project management. NCD Consultant (pvt) ltd
was established in 2007 under the company act no 7 of 2007 in order to provide consultancy
services in large scale both locally and internationally.
NCD Consultant (Pvt) ltd is specialized in variety of design areas such as concrete, steel,
masonry and timber structures. Because of their innovativeness and competence they obtain
the recognition from the Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) for training of graduate
engineers for corporate membership from March 2004.
1.1.1. Information of the company

Name

: NCD Consultants (Pvt) Ltd.

Registered Address

: 70/5, Melder Place, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Office Address

: 1/A, Ananda Road, Melder Place, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Managing Director

: Nandana Abeysuriya
Chartered Civil Engineer
BSc.Eng(Hons),CEng,MIE(SL),MEng.(Struct.Eng design)

Registration No.

: PV 61589

Nature of the company

: limited liability

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Logo of the company

Figure 1 Company Logo

As a beginning of our work, at first organizational structure is considered since because it is
the main skeleton of a any company if the structure is firm and rigid then higher the strength
of the organization.

1.2. Organizational Structure

Managing Director
Director Engineering
Accountant

Director

Chief Structural

Quantity Surveying

Engineer

Structural
Engineer 1

Draftsman 1

Structural
Engineer 2

Draftsman 2

Director
Architectural

Structural
Engineer 3

Draftsman 3

Construction
Engineer

Architect

Ass. Engineer
Draftsman

Trainee Structural
Engineer 1

Trainee Structural
Engineer 2

T.Officer

When considering the organizational structure of the company managing director Mr.
Nandana Abeysooriya is the key person in the company. Under him there are two other
directors in quantity surveying and architectural. There were structural engineers, construction
engineers, draftsman, and architects.etc. Detailed information about the organizational staff
is given below.

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Table 1.1 Organizational staff of the company

Consultants
Architectural Consultant

Name and Designation

Nihantha Munasinghe.
Chartered Architect
B.Sc.(B.E) Hons, M.Sc(Arch),AIA (SL)
Eng. Terrance Gunasekara

Electrical Consultant

Chartered Electrical Engineer

BSc.Eng.(Hons).,CEng, FIE(SL),FIEE(Lond
Wijitha perera

Building Services Consultants

Chartered Mechanical Engineer

BSc.Eng.(Hons),CEng.MIE(SL),
MIProdE(UK)

Nandana Abeysuriya
Managing Director

Chartered Civil Engineer

BSc.Eng
(Hons),CEng,FIE(SL),MEng.(Struct.Eng
Design)

Lionel Gunawickrama
Chief Structural Engineer

Chartered Civil Engineer

BSc.Eng (Hons), CEng,MIE(SL),
PG Dip.(Struct.Eng Design)

Suneth Indika Jayasuriya

Structural Engineer

Structural Engineer

Structural Engineer

BSc.Eng.(Hons)
Eng.Palitha Perera
Charted Civil Engineer
Bsc .Eng(Hons) , CEng,MIE(SL),
MEng.(Struct.Eng Design)
Dr.Deepal Suriarachchi
PHD(Struct.Eng )

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AutoCAD Draughtsman
Director Quantity Survering

Director Interior Design and Landscape

Quantity Surveyor
Accountant
Trainee Structural Engineer

Duminda Muirathna
J.A. Indika Lakmal
Lahiru Meepage
Palitha Dissanayake
M.A.A.C.I.E
Quantity Surveryer
Chandana Fernando
DLSc(SL), DLScH(India)
Shalika Gayathri
Sadupa Perumathanthri
Dilrangi Perera

When considering the organizational structure of the NCD Consultants it is clear there is a
proper way of distributing responsibility among key personals. There are three key characters
with in the company, three directors of three divisions named as structural, Architectural,
Quantity surveying these three key personals have handled their divisions. Under their
supervision there are design engineers, construction engineers, Quantity surveys and
architectures. Same time there accounts division is an essential part of the any company. To
handle their day to day cash incoming and outgoing also deal with the clients is the key
responsibility of the accounts division. All the design engineers, Architects, Draftsman are
worked in the head office and the construction engineers are worked in the head office all the
construction engineers are appointed to the construction sites. Their main practice is to
appoint their construction engineers to the far away sites because the inability of the director
to visit their very frequently and the size of the construction.
We have the opportunity to go for the one of the construction sites that NCD Consultants
worked as a structural consultant in there we have seen that they have maintain their all
documents well systematic way and quality of the construction work is closely inspected.
Our main aim of this is to evaluate the management system of the NCD Consultants before
going for the further analysis of the management system, we have conducted a SWOT
analysis to get an overall idea about the company performance, strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats.

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OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION

Currently there are so many projects on design stage and also under the construction stage.
Those projects includes high rise buildings, resident apartments, two storied houses,
swimming pools, transmission towers, water tanks, rehabilitations of the existing buildings
etc. Not only the local projects but some of the foreign projects are designed by the company.
Currently, company design a residence apartment which is going to construct in Omen. Some
of the projects carrying out by the company now a days are as follows.
Dialog Commercial Building, Colombo 02
Dialog Car park Building , Foster lane
Mercedes Benz Centre, Colombo 04
Air port garden Hotel, Seeduwa
Sun TAN Beach Resort, Pasikuda
Weligama Hotel Courtyard, Weligama
Cirtus Hotel, Hikkaduwa
Riverina Hotel , Beruwala

2.1. SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Company consists of not only structural design but also architectural design, quantity

surveying, electrical, services. So it is easy to client to handover the project to this

company because it consists of all the design parts in one company.
The dedicated staff (Human Resource)
Facilities provided at the office such as laptops, printers, office rooms, green environment,

magazines, holidays, tours, office vehicles.

Highly recognized company since 1998
Working with the highly reputed companies
Evidence of the excellence of their consultancy services by the land marks which are

designed by them.
Working experience with foreign companies such as STUDIO 906 Thailand.

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Weaknesses

Proper concentration is not towards the architectural design and services design, company
mainly concern on the structural design.

Few numbers of chartered engineers are worked in the company.

There was not proper arrangement for advertising.

Poor coordination between the site and the head office.

Head office is situated bit away from the capital.

Head office is closed during the weekends.

Opportunities

With the rapid economic development construction field is an upcoming industry. So

there are lots of constructions companies but fewer number of design companies. So it is
a great opportunity to be well known in the industry by taking over variety of projects.

Some of the foreign companies are now involved in the some of the major construction
projects. It would be a great opportunity competes with them.

Since the company give the chance for undergraduate students to have their implant
training under this company, after passing out most of them joined to the company with
any advertising.

Threats

Since there are lacks of design companies in near future there will of lots of upcoming
companies, there will be lots competition among companies.

In present company more concern on the structural design. So architectural part is

currently inactivated. But the some other competitive companies are consisted with
highly operated architectural devising so those companies will be a threat to the
company.

Some of the leading companies will try to tackle the highly experienced designers in
other companies. So that there should be a proper method to convince them that this the
best place for them gain the knowledge and same time the wealth.

The working staff should be updated about the new design theories coming to the
industry by arranging seminars by giving chance to participating in conferences over
other competitive companies.

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For a company main type of resource can be named as the its employees they are key
characters who are mainly contributed to the success of a company so at first it is better to
evaluate that the employees are satisfied with their job and their employment environment to
evaluate that there are several method that can be used but interviewing them is the most
appropriate method.
To analyze the company management system we decided to conduct a questionnaire survey
among the all employees of the company. In that we mainly focused to check whether the
company management system is supported to enhance the following three skills

Personal skills of the employees

Interpersonal skills of the employees

Group Skills of the employees

As according to the survey we can summarized our findings as follows,

As we mentioned following skills can be seen with in the staff in order to maintain high
quality management system.
Personal Skills

Developing self-awareness,
Values Respect for others and their ideas
Divide responsibilities among the staff with according to their
qualification.
Staff members are guided towards achieving certain goals
Cognitive style proper response for their clients
Concern on their designs
Easily handled information system (maintain a data

base)

Interpersonal Orientation keeping contacts with the other parties

Higher ability of handling people and
Maintaining relationships with others
Higher Compatibility Most of them have the high ability of compatible
with others.

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Managing the personal stress

One of the main problems of the employees is the mental stress most of
the employees are working with high stress level due to several reasons
within the company.

Interpersonal skills

Supportive Communication

Communication is one of the key features behind the success of any consultancy company. In
this company also there are several methods of communication among the employees,
They have official email address for each individual
They have official mobile number to use for office work
Same time they have certain methods to have proper communication between
their construction engineers and the clients.

Motivating employees
To motivate the employees, director board arranged annual functions
also celebrating festivals.
Appreciating their performance
Guided them for training sessions
Updating their knowledge by supplying facilities to participate workshops
training sessions..etc.
Try to build a motivating environment for the employees
Take them tours around the world
Diagnosing the work performance problems

Managing the conflicts

To managing the conflicts company have not taken that much concern since because that they
are not faced that much conflicts up to now but according to our concerns there can be certain
issues that can be lead to conflicts. Such as personal differences, information deficiencies,
working stressetc.

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Group skills
Leadership Correct leadership is main success behind this company as the managing
director, the company is well handed by Mr. Nandana Abeysooriya. His dedication,
attitudes and the way of approaching to the situations and the way he handled it will
reflections of his leadership.
Delegation This is also need in day today working environment of a company. This
quality can be seen employees of the company.
Team Work In an office environment most of the time employees have to work as a
team to achieve a certain target it is quite important to developing abilities that will
helpful to work in a team.

2.2. Human resource Management

Human resource (HR) management is a vital part of any company. To be truly effective,
company human resource team must be experts in a number of important areas. The HR team
is responsible for diverse aspects of each employee's career, from recruitment to hiring to
various aspects of their job while employed at the company. An effective human resource
team effectively executes their policies and procedures and keeps their workforce motivated
and productive.
As we see we can summarized the main four factors that will maintain high level of human
resource management.

2.3. Hiring and Recruitment

Human resource manager must be adept at hiring and recruiting new employees. Identifying,
recruiting, interviewing and hiring high-performing employees is essential for the long term
success of a company. Creating policies and procedures for the hiring and recruiting process
and teaching these skills to all of employees is also critical for the future of the organization.
NCD Consultants all ways following certain guide lines for recruiting new employees and
trainees they conduct a interview and check the personality and the experience of the
interviewees. They have selected the best person from the interviews who are willing work
according to the company rules and guide lines.

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2.4. Compensation and Benefits

Human resource managers must also create, administer and improve the compensation and
benefit structures. Retaining excellent associates depends on many factors. Outstanding pay
and benefits are two critical factors that will ultimately determine how well your employees
feel about your organization and the likelihood that they will remain with your company in
the future. Crafting an effective compensation system and determining the best benefits
package for all of employees are skills that are mandatory.

2.5. Training and Development

Training and development skills are also vital assets for human resource management in a
company. The ability to create training programs that solve human performance problems will
yield important benefits for organization. In structural design skills, as well as outstanding
facilitation and presentation abilities, result in training programs that produce tangible results
for the company. Talents in program evaluation and employee feedback are also needed to
constantly improve the quality of all of training programs. NCD Consultants also conducting
training sessions for their trainees and also guided and encouraged them to participate for the
workshops and seminars organized by certain institutions such as IESL.

2.6. Performance Management

The ability to effectively manage the performances of employees is an integral part of your
human resource management of a company. Establishing and implementing a complete
performance improvement process is an essential skill. Designing performance review
process, maintaining it and effectively monitoring its implementation are challenging tasks.
Coaching employees on how to use the performance management program is also an
important function of human resource management.

2.7. Document Management

Document management is also vital part of a systematic management system when consider
the NCD Consultants they have followed set of methods keeping proper document
management.
Placed a Notice Board in the meeting room which will show their current
involvements in both construction and design stage.
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 Keep the details of their designs in the mode of both soft and hard.
All the design drawings are placed in a systemic way.
Each and every design has a job number to easily find.
Each job has a specific email address to coordinate with the client and the other
parties.
All the minutes that have taken within the company and the outside parties are also
maintained in several modes.
All the drawings are issued after final approval of the respective director.
All the revised drawings are issued through the director structural with their final
approval.
It is common customary to organize a monthly meetings with in the company to
discussed issues that are faced by the employees.

2.8. Financial Management

It is quite difficult task to search on the financial procedure of a private company. As we
experienced NCD Consultants managed their finance in well-structured manner they keep
their accounts in a private bank all the financial matters are handled by the accounts division
of the company. As they revealed they earn certain amount of profit for year it may divided
among shareholders of the company and same time used pay incentives for the employees.
Also annually they organized social activities like helping for students in rural villages and
some charity work.

FINDINGS
By the investigations carried out regarding NCD consultants (pvt) ltd, some information was
noted. These findings can be basically categorized in to two sections. They are the facts that
help to improve the efficiency and facts that causing inefficiency of the company. Those
factors are separately listed below.

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3.1. Facts that help to improve the efficiency

Highly qualified and experienced management
The managing director of the company is a charted engineer and currently he is the secretary of
the structural engineers association of Sri Lanka. Before start this company he has given his
service to many other local and foreign companies. The experience he gained by working with
people belong to different cultures and different countries have become useful to manage the
current company.
Events to control the stress levels of the staff
NCD consultants are one of the leading consultant companies in Sri Lanka. They have
projects both in Sri Lanka and out-side of the country. Handling matters of this large number
of projects with limited number of staff is not an easy task. So when the demand for work is
high the staff members often get stressed. To limit the stress levels of the staff they have
various kinds of activities. On Fridays they change their normal dress to a T-shirt with the
company logo and to a comfortable pair of trousers and shoes. This change in dress has
caused a change in the mindset of the staff. They seemed to be more relaxed on those days.
Also they organize various social events for the staff members and their family. In these
events they go to various beautiful places away from Colombo and have lunch their and enjoy
themselves.
Foreign tours for the staff members
As mentioned above the company handles large number of projects. The management is keen
to allocate some amount of profit for the satisfaction of the staff. As an example, when a large
project is successfully finished, the company provides free foreign tours to staff members. By
those kind of events the staff is fully motivated to give their 100% contribution for the success
of the company.
Relationship between the management and the staff
To be success in business field all the members of the company should work as a one family.
For that the relationship between higher management level and lower level staff is important.
In this company, the managing director personally interferes with the problems faced by the
staff regarding their jobs such as accommodation and transport. Due to these kinds of reasons
the staff has a high respect about the management.

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3.2. Facts that negatively affect the efficiency of the company

Effective communication
Regarding a company communication can be categorized in to two sections. They are the
communication between the different levels of the company and communication with the
society or industry. The communication between the company and the industry is important to
survive in the industry. For that advertising is necessary. But currently the advertising of the
company is poor. Mainly they gain their jobs by industry relationships. But outside of this
certain group, the company is not so popular. The other aspect of effective communication is
the communication between the different levels of the company. Here the communication
between site engineers and office engineers was mainly considered. Mainly the
communication between site engineers and office engineers is done through telephones and e
mails. When the design is finished, it passes to the draftsmen unit for detailed drawings.
These detail drawings are sent to site by the draftsmen. So sometimes office engineer, site
engineer or both dont know whether the details have been sent or received.
Responsibilities below the management level
Another key aspect noted regarding this company is the non-awareness of the responsibilities
of themselves. Below the level of managing director, there are several engineers in the same
level. But when the managing director is out of the country, they dont know who should take
the leadership. So all the work accumulated and finally the efficiency goes down. This is also
same for the draftsmen unit. All the draftsmen are in the same level and finally there is no one
to take the responsibility.
Distribution of power
In building construction, various components should be added to the original design when the
construction is going on. Sometimes the design drawings to those components may be urgent.
In those situations, the managing director may be out of the country. On these situations the
design engineer has no power to send the drawings directly to the site office. He has to first
inform the managing director. So sometimes work can be delayed.

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 No proper office environment

The first impression we got about the company is seems too small. All the sections are closely
established.so it can be bit uneasy for the staff. Also the company building doesnt give an
image about the strength of the company.

RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION

We can present following suggestions for improving the efficiency of the company by
reducing negative aspects.
Developing proper communication within staff
As mentioned earlier under findings the communication between site engineers, design
engineers, draftsmen and management are done by using e-mails and telephones. Due to that
sometimes the real issue in the site is not communicated accurately to the particular level of
the staff. Therefore holding several number of meetings and discussions between the several
levels of the staff the communication can be done properly and effectively.
Distributing responsibilities through the staff
In this company managing director is the only person who participates for every meeting
which is held in the construction sites. Although there are another two chartered structural
engineers in the company, they do not participate for the meetings. Also almost all the
inspections in the sites are done by managing director. Therefore the time spent for one site by
a highly responsible person is very low. Therefore real issues cannot be identified. If the
responsibility of sites can be divided for the other two engineers also, the time taken for
inspections, site visits, meetings, etc. done by a responsible person will increase as a result of
this effectiveness will increase. Since there are another two consulting site engineers the
responsibility relevant to the site can be given to the consulting site engineer who stays in the
construction site.
Increasing the number of staff
The staff of the company is relatively small. There are only two permanent site engineers and
four structural engineers. Number of consulting site engineers is not adequate for the projects.
Sometimes several sites are inspected by one site engineer. Also there are only three
draftsmen. Since one person in particular staff level has large work load he/she may not do the
work properly and effectively. When someone takes a leave then there is nobody for doing
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his/her work. Due to that delays can take place. So increasing number of staff for different
levels will increase the effectiveness of the company.
Increasing the physical facilities of the office
The office building of the company is relatively small and facilities of the building are also in
moderate condition. Condition of the work place and the facilities of the building will
improve the mental equilibrium of the employees and it will cause to increase the
effectiveness of the company. Also when someone come to the office, he can get a very
positive idea of the performance by seeing the nature of the office. Air condition facilities,
very quality equipment like new computers, printers and very speed internet facilities can be
provided for achieving that purpose. A new very comfortable conference hall can also be
provided instead of the current conference hall. Also new bathrooms and toilet facilities also
can be provided.
Increasing advertising
Although the company is engaging in lot of large projects, it is not a popular among the
society. By paper advertisements and internet advertisements a vast advertency can be
obtained among the construction field. By these advertising methods large area in the society
can be covered and due to that lot of projects can be obtained from several sectors in the
society.

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CONCLUSION
The NCD consultant (PVT) Ltd is a consultancy firm which provides their services in
building and construction sector. Through this case study their managerial skills were
evaluated and both positive and negative factors which affects for their efficiency were
identified.
Well-qualified and experienced human resources in the management team, dedicated staff,
good relationship between management and the staff are main positive factors that could be
identified. It could be found out that the efficiency of this company is reduced due to poor
communication between staff members, lack of enough staff members, uneven distribution of
responsibilities and power among staff members, lack of physical facilities for the staff
members etc.
Therefore in order to mitigate their negative factors and improve the companys efficiency,
suggestions that can be applicable can be summarized as follows.
Poor communication between staff members can create problems due to misunderstanding.
This problem can be mitigated by arranging meetings with different level of staff. So that they
will get chance to identify the real issues properly. Furthermore this company is not much
popular in the society due to the poor communication between society and the company. Use
of paper or internet advertisements will make the company popular among the society and it
will help to create more business opportunities.
The company expanding the number of staff members should be recruited to reduce the work
load on one person. This will increase the efficiency of the company and will be able to
provide a better service for the clients. It will also create a very relaxed environment for
employees due to reasonable work load which will again help to increase the efficiency.
Improving the companys physical properties will be helpful to enhance the mental stability of
employees which will guide them to work in a peaceful mind.
These are the suggestions to mitigate the factors which could create inefficiency in the
company. By improving the suggested factors the company will be able to increase its
efficiency while creating a good reputation within the society which will also be helpful to
increase business opportunities.

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