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Construction market activity
The ONS released its figures for Output in the Construction Industry May 2013 earlier this month, these figures show that total volume of construction output in May 2013 was 4.8% lower than in May 2012, with zero growth since April 2013. The Construction Products Association's State of the Trade Survey 2013 Q2 shows that the sales of construction products recovered slightly during Q2 2013, after the Q1 slump due to the poor weather conditions. The FMB State of Trade Survey also reported rising activity in Q2, with increased optimism for the next three months. Much of this reported improvement is driven by housing and infrastructure development with no growth from any of the other sectors.
The Nationwide House Price Index has reported that house prices increased by 0.3% in June, making them 1.9% higher than June 2012. The Halifax House Price Index has also reported that house prices increased by 0.6% in June. Halifax have said that house prices in Q2 2013 were 2.1% higher than in Q1 2013. To reinforce indications that the housing sector is showing signs of recovery the National House-Building Council have announced that private sector housing registrations have reached a five year high, with nearly 14,000 homes being registered in May, the highest since 2008 when the economic downturn began. The challenge for housebuilders is knowing if this is a blip or a long term recovery.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the promising outlook for housing the government's latest spending review included a cut in the capital spending budget for social housing. This means that the capital budget will fall 36% year on year until 2016. This reduction in capital spending on social housing will be partly offset by rises in rent.
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Regulations & initiatives - a quick update
The Industrial Strategy for Construction was launched on 2 July by a myriad of government Ministers and officials at the Government's Construction Summit.
BIS also published an analytical paper: UK Construction: Economic Analysis of the Sector July 2013. This paper was prepared as background for the Industrial Strategy and presents data on the industry, showing evidence that UK construction is responding well to some of its challenges and has the potential to take advantage of substantial global market opportunities in the future.
The Government has published its Spending Review 2013 outlining overall spending plans in 2015/16. It also published its Investing in Britain's Future document outlining spending in the built environment from 2015/16 onwards; in summary this is £100 billion of projects and investment in key areas of housing, education, health and infrastructure.
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Communicating with construction industry decision makers - PR in a digital age
 Anna Hern from Ridgemount PR is a strong believer that 'Content is King' so I wanted to ask her how PR has changed in this digital age and whether the press release is still relevant?
In this blog we look at the trends indicated by the CMI research and ask Anna to comment on the findings, drawing on her experiences of communicating with construction industry key decision makers.
Read the full blog article |
Understanding the different players in the industry - civil engineers
The aim of this blog series is to provide a clearer view of the complex construction industry and how the different members of the project team work together. In this blog we review the role of the Engineer, focusing on the Civil Engineer.
Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline, it was originally defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. Nowadays the role is central to ensuring the safe and timely completion of many projects in areas such as; highway construction, waste management, energy generation, coastal development and geotechnical engineering.
Read the full blog article
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What's being said - a round-up of useful marketing items
The Net Promoter Score
 Competitive Advantage considers the principal of Net Promoter Score an important aspect of research. And with this in mind we have reviewed Fred Reichheld's updated book titled The Ultimate Question 2.0.
Competitive Advantage are incorporating NPS into customer satisfaction surveys. We have also developed a means of monitoring specification strength using the concept.
See our blog Measuring your Brand Strength in Specification to learn more.
Communicating with Specifiers online
Specifiedby have produced an infographic that looks at the importance of providing for specifiers online perhaps inspired by the launch of their new website.
Our 2013 edition of the Construction Media Index provides a dedicated section looking into digital communications used by key decision makers in the construction industry; a useful report for developing your online communications strategy.
#loveconstruction
Following the release of the Construction 2025 strategy Construction News have been inspired to launch the 'love construction' campaign. This campaign has already taken off on twitter and is active on LinkedIn. It is an opportunity to raise the profile of the construction industry and encourage young people to get involved. So why not tweet today using #loveconstruction.
Finally take a look at this blog by Pauley Creative featuring some interesting music videos from the industry. At the very least it will make you laugh and may get you in the mood to love construction!
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Forthcoming events
On demand training
Over the last eight months we have hosted a number of webinars covering sales and marketing in relation to construction. These webinars are now available to purchase as a Windows media video file and slide pack. For a full list of titles visit on-demand training.
Our live webinar programme
Specification selling
I will also be repeating my popular one day course Effective Specification Selling on 3 October at the Building Centre in London
Further events include
For a full listing of forthcoming events visit our website.
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