• Question: How important is understanding business to being successful as an engineer? 

    Asked by rattyvlogger to Graham, Luke, Maksim, Ruth on 19 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      i would say that you must have some kind of grasp of business to be a good engineer. mostly this is down to money. you need to understand how your company works, how it processes money and where the funds came from to build you building for example. where there grants involved? do you get the money all up front or do you need to spend first before you can claim it back. this is vital as an engineer as you need to programme your works and be considerate of how it will be paid for. you dont want to start big expensive items when you cant pay for it.

      thanks

      claire

    • Photo: Ruth Gregory

      Ruth Gregory answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      When you begin as an engineer it isn’t too important but you are sure to learn this within the role. The company can guide you in the right direction for learning business skills. You need to understand the importance of efficiency and quality as all companies are looking to make a profit whilst working safely and they look to you to support this.

    • Photo: Graham Wiggins

      Graham Wiggins answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      rattyvlogger
      Claire + Ruth’s answers below are great, you’ll bump into finance as an engineer, and you’ll usually have to book your time on certain tasks, to make sure customer gets the right bill, and you get paid.

    • Photo: Luke Fry

      Luke Fry answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      To add to those great answers, in a somewhat cynical way 😛 , it’s good to have a grasp of business because it can help you to understand and pick apart decisions taken by management that you might not agree with because on the face of it they don’t seem to make sense.

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