126 December 2015 - Business View Caribbean
Most projects in the Bahamas are awarded on a bid
basis, so the initial challenge was to get the company
on the list of those businesses whose bids were rou-
tinely solicited by architects. Once Inline Project was
able to gain the confidence of the architects, Jones
said, winning bids became the norm.
“We’re not a big firm, but we’re not a small one either,”
he said.
“Where we are, they tend to put me in with the bigger
firms. My operation costs are always lower and I’ve got
all the equipment that they have. Hence, I can beat
them. I have all those advantages. And, on a lot of
projects that go through a bank, the contractor needs
to be able to fund the project at the initial stage. The
smaller man doesn’t have the funding to do that. We
pick up a lot of smaller jobs because the smaller guys
can’t get the funding.”
Company personnel is in the midst of training on a new
management software application that will streamline
administrative project functions like change orders
and RFIs, and will enable Jones to be instantly up-
dated when information changes at a given job site.
Meantime, the settling-in process continues at the
new 5,000 square-foot space that has housed the
business’ offices, a warehouse and a workshop since
it moved over from a 1,000 square-foot space in De-
cember. Going forward, the top corporate priorities re-
volve around strengthening the team.
More equipment to augment the existing contracting
services is near the top of the agenda, as is further ex-