Running Head: PLANNING AND DESIGNING CONSULTANT 1

Planning and Designing Consultant: Kimley Horn

Ramalinga Raju vadapalli
Sullivan University
MDT 597: Graduate Management Externship
December 8th 2017
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Planning and Designing Consultant: Kimley Horn

Introduction

I have interviewed Mr. Jorge L. Simbaqueba who is the Project Engineer (Civil Engineer)

at Kimley Horn (Frisco location) and is looking after the Dallas cowboy’s world headquarters

NFL training facility. Mr. Simbaqueba has over 5 years of experience as a civil engineer in

various civil/site design positions and he is well experienced in Micro Station, AutoCAD Civil

3D, GeoPak etc. Mr. Simbaqueba has professional experience in many fields which includes site

design, highway and roadway engineering, mixed used development, GIS mapping & asset

management, regional planning initiatives etc. Mr. Simbaqueba also has experience in

managerial role, filed inspection, PS&E development and technical proposal. He works from 8

A.M to 5 P.M and sometimes he works for more hours if the work load is more.

Mr. Simbaqueba told me that for Kimley Horn clients and employees are the forefront of

their business. Clients know that Kimley Horn is focused all the time for their success. And their

business model is built in such a way that their employees flourish for one and all. Mr.

Simbaqueba told me that both their clients and employees know that they can always expect

more and experience excellence with Kimley Horn. Mr. Simbaqueba told me that Kimley Horn

is a very trusted business that is why 90% of its business comes from repeated clients. Kimley

Horn provide outstanding results to their customers with their creative engineers, planners, and

environmental scientists. With this creativity Kimley Horn save a lot of money and time for their

clients. Mr. Simbaqueba also told me that tt doesn’t matter if your business involve private

development or public infrastructure, they will reduce your risk and increase your success (Client

Service 2017).
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In my course competing in domestic and international market I have learned that for a

company there are many competitor companies that have the same economic conditions and

identical challenges. To retain in the business and to make profits we need to differentiate

ourselves with some competitive advantage. For Kimley Horn it is customer relation service.

They give their customer exceptional service and attain competitive advantage over their

competitors. They also follow one of the Porter’s generic competitive strategy of Cost Focus.

They try to reduce the cost of their clients with innovative ideas and advanced tools (Thompson,

A. A., Pateraf, M.A., Gamble, J.E., &. Strickland. 2018).

With its 2,800 staff member and more than 75 location all over USA Kimley Horn has

location advantage in which Kimley Horn is easily available within its customer’s location

whenever they need any planning and designing services. Mr. Simbaqueba told me that

thousands of their client said that they had good experience working with Kimley Horn and that

they expect more and experience better from Kimley Horn in getting their work done. Mr.

Simbaqueba also told me that their strategy is to hire best talent available and give them the best

tool to help them succeed and which gives the best result to their client (Why Hire Us? 2017).

In my marketing strategy and implementation course I have learned how important it is to

position ourselves according to the changes in the economy to acquire its customers. For

consumer to choose a product or service it not only depends upon the price but also on the

quality, status and other factors (Kotler & Keller, 2011). Mr. Simbaqueba told me that Kimley

Horn has very good reputation in planning and designing industry and have lot of links with the

professional organization and with its large number of locations all over U.S, many know about

Kimley Horn business and services. Kimley Horn has all these factors which leads to very

advantageous for him in his customer acquisition.

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Mr. Simbaqueba told me that Kimley Horn takes their employee satisfaction very

seriously. I have been told by Mr. Simbaqueba that Kimley Horn is changing and adapting

according to the current situations to attract and retain up and coming young talented engineers.

They are looking for talents who seek more opportunities to grow in their careers and make a

difference. Mr. Simbaqueba told me that Kimley Horn has also increased their training budget to

increase the professional development for their current and upcoming employees. In selecting

their employees they do not look at their G.P.A, they are looking for people who have diversity

in her/his life. Kimley Horn want to see that their upcoming employees worked their way

through school involving extracurricular activities and community activities. He also told me that

if an employee leaves Kimley Horn it is also both good and bad for the company.

In my course managerial communication skill we have been taught that we have to take

our employees seriously as they are the assets of the organization and a good and happy

employee will definitely bring growth to your companies. I also learned that investing in

employee is like investing in asset which is very advantageous to the company. I also learned

from this course that employee leave companies for two reasons, one is they do not like their

boss and the other is better growth opportunities. If an employee leaves a company it give the

opportunity to have new talents and at the same time may also loose good talents. All the things

which I have learned in my managerial communication skill course relates to the real world and I

can say that employee’s satisfaction and voluntary defiantly plays a big role for a company

growth (Yanjuan Zhang 2016).

Kimley Horn has only one international location which is in Puerto Rico. Mr.

Simbaqueba told me that since it is not that much big company they decided to expand their

business internationally with in a small pace. They have gone international because to enjoy the
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cheap labor cost and took their experience which is in great demand. In my course competing in

domestic and international market it has been taught to me that the companies move to

international market was driven by search for low labor cost. If at present a company is not

taking advantage of the globalization they might be losing a lot of market and that is why Kimley

Horn has started to expand internationally but started at a small pace (Thompson, A. A., Pateraf,

M.A., Gamble, J.E., &. Strickland. 2018).

Mr. Simbaqueba told me that with so many office located all over U.S. many know about

the products and services Kimley Horn provides which makes a very good marketing strategy.

Mr. Simbaqueba told me that their project design and project quality is so much attractive that

people automatically ask about who the designer is or which company designed it.

In my course marketing strategy and implementation I have been taught that design and

quality makes a lot of impact in acquiring the market share. Consumers like Apple products very

much because of their superior quality and design. Sometimes products gets sold only because of

their attractive design (Kotler & Keller, 2011).

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References

Client Service (2017). Retrieved from https://www.kimley-horn.com/about-us/client-service/

Kotler, P., Keller, K. (2011). Marketing management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Thompson, A. A., Pateraf, M.A., Gamble, J.E., &. Strickland. (2018). Crafting and Executing
Strategy - The quest for competitive advantage. (21st Ed). New York McGraw-Hill
Education.

Why hire us? (2017) Retrieved from https://www.kimley-horn.com/about-us/why-kimley-

horn/philosophy-and-approach/

Yanjuan Zhang (2016). A Review of Employee Turnover Influence Factor and Countermeasure.
Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies 4, 85-91