7 construction industry firms that not only survived, but thrived, in 2020

Excerpt from Construction Dive - Published Feb. 1, 2021

GI Stone: Creating more efficiencies

For Sandya Dandamudi, GI Stone's success during the pandemic was not about gaining more customers. After all, the Chicago stone fabrication and installation company she leads already had more than a year’s worth of jobs on the books when 2020 began.

Instead, Dandamudi said, the company focused on creating more efficiencies within the business and managed to increase project profit by 6% to 7%. GI had already employed waste-ridding strategies like meeting via Zoom and going paperless before the pandemic hit, so 2020 saw those practices continue.

“We did not have that 'deer in headlights' look. We were ready to be agile,” she said. “We took a very aggressive and assertive approach.”

In fact, this was also the strategy for securing its construction materials. Dandamudi was in China in January 2020 when rumors about the novel coronavirus started to circulate, so she immediately fast-tracked the orders she could to minimize supply chain disruption.

“We also ended being awarded some jobs where other competitors didn’t have the material,” she said.

The image of how this year will shake out, she said, is “still a little blurry,” but the company is booked through the second and third quarters. There have, however, been a few projects that have had a status change as far as financing.

“This is where I don’t have a crystal ball,” she said.