Identification of Key Performance Indicators of Construction Companies Based on Guided Interviews

Abstract

This article is related to the junior project entitled Performance Measurement of Construction Enterprises FAST/FP-J-24-848, which deals with the analysis of the performance of construction enterprises in the Czech Republic. Previous research has found that the Czech Republic is rather below the Eurozone average in terms of performance in the construction sector. To improve the situation, it is necessary to first become familiar with the style of performance measurement within construction firms themselves. Therefore, the aim of the research was to determine the status of the performance indicators currently used in the selected construction firms and to identify possible gaps in the performance measurement of the firms or to suggest a more appropriate performance measurement approach for the firms in question that would help to improve their resulting performance. This field finding was carried out through guided interviews based on the developed questionnaire in twenty selected construction firms. This article presents a mapping of the situation of individual size categories of construction companies in the sense of an initial identification of the situation, or pre-research. Due to the low return rate of questionnaire surveys, which is usually between 10 and 25%, a procedure using guided interviews was chosen. These interviews made it possible to obtain relevant responses, with each size category of enterprises adequately represented. The aim of this paper is not to generalise the results based on the data obtained from just twenty guided interviews, but rather to provide an initial mapping of the trends and direction of construction companies. The research will be further continued by sending out a questionnaire survey to a larger number of companies and the results obtained will be further examined. The research conducted revealed that most of the construction companies interviewed still rely mainly on financial indicators in the form of financial analysis and lack the use of other methods to measure company performance, including the analysis of non-financial indicators or at least the comparison of their results through benchmarking. Therefore, for a more in-depth assessment of the performance of the firms in question, it is advisable that they start observing non-financial performance indicators to a greater extent or introducing the use of comprehensive methods to measure business performance in the firms in question. It is also advisable for firms to start monitoring their competitive position within the sector, which can lead to an increase in the efficiency of the sector. Properly set up, monitoring the performance of construction firms can contribute to improving the overall performance of the sector relative to the Eurozone.