Sharing pricing information

[LSpark]

The company I work for used to provide engineering services to other companies as well as our own sites. For various reasons we are retracting back to supporting our own sites only, so the sites we used to support are looking for new providers.

A company I have dealings with are looking to fill a small part of the void left and have asked if I can give them any idea how to price their services. It relates to my speciality so obviously I have full breakdowns at my fingertips.

How much information would be ethical? None? Overall cost? An idea of mandays required? Full breakdown?

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the issue, but handing the potential competition any info (including pricing) may be considered a no-no by your company. Even if they're getting out of the market, that leave may be temporary.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[LSpark]

That's kind of what I'm thinking though we wouldn't be able to re-enter the market in our current form as no one would touch us with a barge pole! The only way we could re-enter the market is if our current owners sold the subsidiary to someone else who did want to sell our services.

As much as I want to help them perhaps just giving them a few pointers of the sort of things they should consider is the way forward.

 

[looslib]

Talk it over with your boss. If they will no longer be doing subcontract work, he may be willing to let you provide some more detailed information to others. Actual pricing is too dependent on too many factors.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[MiketheEngineer]

It could be construed as "price-fixing". You can go to prison very easily for doing that... Talk to your boss and your lawyer!!!

 

[zdas04]

The best advice you can give them is to come here to eng-tips.com and search for the hundreds of threads where we've discussed pricing. Giving them detailed information on price levels that you bid in the past is unethical and probably illegal.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

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[KENAT]

Heck, you could even contribute to the Eng-tips thread with a moderately muddy conscious;-).

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[jmw]

This isn't your information to share, it belongs to the company.

This sounds like a recent development.
There are a number of possibilities and options.
For example, this is no longer a good use of your company resources and you and others will be better employed at core activities.
Or it may be that they found this work didn't return a reasonable profit (not necessarily the same thing).

Of course, your company may have wanted to continue this work but for various reasons cannot.

Companies may well decide to stop doing certain things but they rarely simply walk away.
They usually place a value on each part of the business. If they decide to withdraw they will usually want to sell that bit of the business and value it based on intangibles like Good Will, client base, residual stocks of whatever, and knowledge.
They try and sell this business and your information may be an important part of those business assets.

Your company may have plans you don't know about.

I don't doubt that you have to decline to assist, except with management approval, but your choices are whether or not to discuss with your management.

If your discuss, you may find they will want to sell whatever they can to this company, or if they find this company can do the work profitably, they may decide they will retain ownership of the business and sub-contract to them.

And, not to be neglected, one of the sweeteners on the table may be the prospect of subcontracting the internal work to this company also.
Hence, when you say this is your area, you have to value yourself in either scenario and also your employment prospects; I assume you don't want to be instrumental in your own redundancy.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[lacajun]

It is best to not share anything for the reasons others have stated. I wouldn't share even if I jumped ship to them.

Shouldn't they know how to bid the work?

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[patprimmer]

jmw makes some very good points.

The information belongs to your current employer and it has a value and you probably have no right to give that away.

You do not know your companies mid and long term strategy. Heck, maybe they don't even know it, and anyway, it can change suddenly with circumstances

As to collusion to fix prices, in many jurisdictions that is illegal. It might be argued that you are no longer a competitor so there is no attempt to form a cartel.

Laws do vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and so far as I know, we are all engineers here and none of us is a lawyer, so if you still intend to do it or your boss agrees or even wants to sell it, seek legal advice from a lawyer familiar with your local laws on price fixing and collusion.

Barge poll has a very British ring to it. It is also a ommon expression in Aus. Do Americans use it?

Regards
Pat
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[MiketheEngineer]

What's a "barge poll"????

 

[lacajun]

Never heard of "barge poll."

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[patprimmer]

It's a long wooden pole used to push barges along a canal.

Because of it's length it implies you would not touch something even though you could maintain a good distance. I had a feeling the OP might have been British by the language used, the barge pole reference being the most obvious I thought.

I felt advice about anti trust laws from people here I know to be American might not apply the same way in Brittan.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

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[hokie66]

Pat, there are plenty of barges in the US also. I've heard that expression used all my life, although "wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole" is probably more common.

 

[KENAT]

poll V pole Pat.

OP Maybe, you can be involved in arranging for your company to provide relevant information, for a price and in respect of local legislation, for some kind of bonus or something?

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[patprimmer]

Dam

That was a blunder compounded by the fact that it went straight through to the keeper. Now I know that one is a British expression.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[LSpark]

Thanks all, I am British - must stop using localisms, causes confusion sorry! I don't think my company has a strategy at the moment but that's a different problem.

I think they're angling after total price paid so they can price competively but not stupidly low. Part of the work they can easily work out prices for (they sub-contract to some people already in the market) it's the bit they haven't done before they aren't sure about.

I'll try and track down my line managers boss as he has worked on the business development side fairly recently, just need to find a time when he isn't on leave or working from home. Otherwise I think I can only give them an idea of the sort of things they need to consider rather than hard figures.

 

[jmw]

Even giving them an idea may be beyond what is allowable.
Don't forget that your knowledge is more than the prices. It includes everything.
Anything that helps some one has value, however vague.... it may be to your companies commercial advantage that this new company makes mistakes because they don't even have an idea.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[lacajun]

Emerson trains its employees on business ethics in the states and foreign countries. I remember Europe being as stringent as the US about collusion in most cases and more so in others.

Why didn't this company's management go to your company's management?

We are not attorney's but it's like the attorney that PPG sent to the Lake Charles Plant for ethics training told us, and it's not verbatim, "You are expected to know the laws. You are expected to obey the laws. You are to contact us, if you have questions about any of the laws or find yourself in need of us." I heard that over 20 years ago. Ignorance is no excuse. The Louisiana code is very clear on the necessity to know the laws and code of conduct and abide by all as a PE. There again, ignorance is no excuse.

Any information, data, etc. that a client has is to be treated as confidential. I apply that to employer's property, too, which is any of their information.

Every employer of mine had strict rules about confidentiality. Don't share anything without management's approval and sometimes that goes high up the food chain.

Perhaps companies are different in this regard. I have a limited perspective.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[jmw]

Oh yeah, the CYA factor.

If you choose to discuss this with your boss, as you probably should no matter what you want to share, even if in an informal way, if it is an affirmative or limited affirmative, then summarise the decision back to him in writing saying:
"Is this what was agreed, did I understand it right?"
Then you should get a written reply. (Be unavailable on the phone or he may just call and say "yes"; what you need is written approval because management memories are very flexible.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com