 
          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-