Greetings!
This month I'm looking at three issues - Housing, which remains a negative and Sustainability and Export which both represent opportunities, perhaps in combination. I hope these articles provide you with some inspiration for 2009. |
| Sustainability |
 Developments continue in the area of sustainability, an interesting article "Building for the Future: Integrated Design for Sustainable Buildings" has been published by the UK Green Building Council. This gives an insight into the integrated approach used to maximise a building's performance, as opposed to using just A and A+ rated materials an approach adopted by some client organisations. It also indicates the expanding role of the M&E consultant. If you are involved in the specification process it is well worth a read.
A new Associate to join the Competitive Advantage team is Steve Miller. Steve has extensive experience in the manufacture of building products and held the position of Head of Sustainability at Hanson Building Products until last year. Steve is available to advise on sustainability issues. He has written a useful article "Sustainability in Construction" which gives manufacturers and suppliers a situation update. |
| Is Export the Answer? |
 As Sterling weakens British products and services become more competitive abroad, providing sales opportunities. The team at Competitive Advantage can help you with this; researching opportunities, developing strategy or helping with implementation.
This month Saudi Arabia seems to be the focus of attention. You can hear what Paul Taylor, Head of Middle East Business at UKTI has to say, participate in a trade mission organised by Construction News or attend a briefing Winning Business in Saudi Arabia in London on 18th February being organised by CIMCIG in conjunction with UKTI.
Finally, email me if you would like a copy of the presentation on export that I will be giving at tomorrows conference "A survivors guide to the recession". |
 Housing Market |
We seem to be receiving mixed messages concerning the housing market this month. The Halifax tell us that prices increased by 1.9% in January, compared with a reported decline of 1.3% by Nationwide. No doubt these variations are because of the low volume of transactions involved, but lets hope that the two cancel each other out and the decline has bottomed-out. This variation does demonstrate how little anyone knows, and how quickly forecasts are out of date. To keep on top of the situation you need to gather as much information as possible. One source of information is Competitive Advantage's Housebuilder Watch. The January edition was published recently and shows that housebuilder optimism seems to be levelling off after a steep decline. It also shows a high variation in social housing starts across the UK regions. To read an overview follow the link. |
