Survival Strategies for Construction Companies in Sarawak, Malaysia amidst Challenging Economic Climate

The emergence of Covid-19 pandemic had caused a major economic downturn worldwide especially in early 2020. During that period of time, many construction companies were forced to deal with the impacts by adopting various strategies to ensure their existence and further development. Although the Covid-19 health emergency was declared ended in 2023, there are still many challenges ahead the road to economic recovery. In Malaysia, the economic outlook in 2024 is still uncertain due to global economic uncertainty driven by Russia-Ukrain conflicts and Middle East conflicts, skilled labour shortage, and supply chain disruptions in other countries. In this uncertain environment, the construction industry should pre-plan strategies to cope with future challenging economic climate. Through literature review, it was discovered that there is a lack of studies in Sarawak, Malaysia on how the construction companies should respond to the negative economic impacts. Therefore, this paper aims to study the survival strategies of construction companies in Sarawak amidst challenging economic climate. A quantitative research approach was adopted in order to achieve the aim. Structured questionnaires were distributed to Grade 7 construction companies in Sarawak for them to rate the importance of 53 survival strategies based on a 5-point Likert scale. The received 130 valid responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and RII methods. The findings show that the most important survival strategies are “implementing stricter site management to reduce material & time wastage in order to achieve lowest construction cost†, “carefully considering the payment terms and the client ability to make payment†, and “implementing stricter financial management on company cash flow†while the least important strategies are “diversifying into non-construction related businesses†, “increasing staff working hours†, and “converting permanent staff into temporary placements†. The findings of the present research could serve as a guideline to the construction companies in Sarawak to address the challenges posed by the economic crisis. Besides, the present research is also useful to researchers or academicians who intend to conduct more research on this topic.