Any business owner will tell you that the strength of your business lies in the strength of your business relationships. Whether it be with clients, vendors, subcontractors or even the government, the more you foster trust and respect within business relationships, the more your services stand out amongst the competition. Let’s look at the importance of subcontracting in this article.
Why Subcontractors are Essential
At Duthie Power Services, we’ve had over fifty-five years in Southern California to cultivate relationships with skilled electrical subcontractors who we trust to perform quality work. As a reminder, a contractor is a person who seeks you out as a customer and is responsible for ensuring all the work outlined in a contract for a given project is delivered. A subcontractor forms agreements with the contractor, not the customer, to perform specific elements of a project. So, you may ask – why have Duthie hire a subcontractor and not just hire the subcontractor myself? There are many reasons.
Building Strong Relationships
Trust takes times to build. Working with Duthie Power as a one-stop shop means you don’t have to take a chance on a new relationship with another vendor. We are fully insured and connect ourselves with people who we trust and are also fully insured, so you can trust who we’re bringing in as opposed to building another vendor relationship and hoping it works out.
Specialized Skills and Expertise
Customers don’t want a jack of all trades, master of none. We hire subcontractors with a range of expertise to meet the specific needs of our customers. For example, we’ve secured subcontractors to work on fire pump units since they can work on the pump and water pipes while our technicians service the engine in the fire pump. It’s a win-win relationship in which we bring the fire pump company work and they also bring us work that we might not normally get.
Effective Management and Oversight
Another example is when we worked with a railroad company that needed painters for the fuel tanks we were servicing. The railroad has specific requirements for the type of paint you can use, so the railroad trusted Duthie to subcontract out the work to a reputable fuel tank company that knew how to meet their paint specifications. We, of course, hired a licensed, bonded, and experienced fuel tank company because our quality assurance guarantee covers the entirety of a project, not just the parts our technicians manage.
Selecting the Right Subcontractors
On the electrical side, a few years ago Duthie was hired by a local Convention Center that needed our assistance with servicing their 4,160V motor. Given the high voltage, we sought the support of an electrical subcontractor to expedite getting their lights back on. We’ve had a long-term relationship with the Convention Center, plus we’re already approved as a vendor, so it was more advantageous for them to hire Duthie Power as a Project Manager and work with our subcontractors than to hire another company directly.
If you’re looking at a job that requires skilled work from a variety of vendors, don’t discount the value of hiring a reputable company that will take on the hassle of hiring subcontractors who will get you the quality work you need. Whether it’s for high voltage electrical work, rebuilding fuel injection pumps or water pumps, or even component rebuilding, turn to a company like Duthie that has over fifty years of credibility and trust in the industry to pull together your “A Team.”
