Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter

Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter

August 2013

Greetings!

Welcome to this month's edition of the Construction Sales and Marketing Newsletter. I'm pleased to say that our market activity report is full of encouraging news! Also our latest report on usage of BIM predicts rapid take-up in the coming years. All of this will change the structure of the market, so allow for research in next year's budget. While thinking about next year's budget why not complete our market activity survey to benchmark your budget against similar construction organisations?

Construction market activity

At long last the green shoots of recovery are starting to show, with good news from a number of quarters. We are only seeing very small positive swings but it is in the right direction and will contribute to confidence and a positive attitude, which in turn will encourage further growth.

An example of this positive attitude is the news from the National Specialist Contractors Council that 31% of specialist contractors are planning to expand their business over the next three months. The Markit/CIPs index has reached its highest levels in 3 years, since June 2010. And further good news came from Savills' Commercial Development Activity Index which showed there was growth in commercial activity across the UK at the strongest rate since 2007.

The Construction Products Association has revised its forecasts upwards with growth in 2014 anticipated to be 2.2% (although they still expect a 1.5% fall in 2013) and their latest Construction Trade Survey shows that conditions in Q2 improved across all construction sectors and throughout the supply chain.

To confirm this the ONS figures for Output in the Construction Industryshow that construction output in Q2 2013 was 1.4% higher than that of Q1 2013, although 0.5% lower than in Q2 2012.

This return to growth is being led by the housing market, with strong performance from the national house builders as a consequence of government initiatives. One predicted consequence will be an increase in house prices. The Nationwide House Price Index shows that house prices rose by 0.8% in July, which makes it 3.9% higher than in July 2012. The Halifax House Price Index reports that house prices increased by 0.9% in July, making it the sixth consecutive monthly rise.

Regulations & initiatives - a quick update

Social housing provider Affinity Sutton has published its FutureFit report which, while showing that retrofit does work and that a fabric first approach can have a real impact on a household's gas bills, it also says the SAP model used to calculate savings is not reliable.

The Zero Carbon Hub has published its interim report on Closing the Gap between Design and As-Built Performance of new homes. This identifies opportunities for improvement of SAP, with concern over the gap between product testing and 'as-built' performance. There is also concern about the use of the term "or Equivalent" by designers without defining the critical performance criteria.

HCL have published the social housing regulator's assessment of individual providers. This is a useful listing of all RSLs.

The DCLG has issued a consultation document: 'Next steps to Zero Carbon Homes - Allowable Solutions'. This sets out and seeks views and further evidence on the delivery of 'allowable solutions' house builders may support to achieve the zero carbon homes standard.

A new £20 million Green Deal Communities scheme to help local authorities drive 'street-by-street' delivery of the Green Deal has been announced.

Finally new planning rules have been announced, promising to cut red tape and make it easier to bring empty and underused buildings back to life.

Adoption of BIM - 2013 research

Our latest report shows that at present BIM is used for 3.9% of all construction projects representing £3.8 billion, by 2016 its penetration will have increased to 50.8% of projects worth £55.1 billion. Of those architects using BIM, 18% use it for all projects and this is predicted to increase to 68% by 2016.

If you are embarking on your BIM journey there are a number of cases studies that may be of use: Celotex feature in a recent article by RIBA Insight, Kingspan, Glazing Vision and Kalzip feature in the CPA publication BIM for the Terrified

Our new research will help manufacturers decide if the investment in BIM is justified by enabling you to understand:

The value and penetration of BIM designed construction up to 2016
The growth in BIM in your target market - a free service to subscribers calculated by our market analysis team
How architects are currently using BIM and how this will change by 2016
Variations in BIM usage between sectors
The availability and importance of manufacturers specifications as BIM objects
Architects preferred sources for BIM objects
What architects expect from manufacturers offering BIM objects

Analysis into the Potential influence of BIM on your market:

To justify the investment in BIM you need to know what value of your business will be influenced by its use. We will compile an

analysis that calculates the potential growth in value of BIM designed projects in your markets. The cost of this is just £50 +VAT. Simply pay online, complete the form and a member of our market analysis team will action the work for you. If you then go on to purchase the Adoption of BIM report the cost of this analysis will be reimbursed.

Order your analysis now.

Find out more about the research

Marketing spend - justifying your budgets

How do you decide your marketing spend and then justify it to the Finance Director? Even when starting with a bottom-up process it is useful to have a comparison with other similar companies.

This survey, in partnership with CIMCIG, is designed to provide an insight into how construction marketing expenditure is committed.

Complete the survey and you will receive a free copy of the report when published.

This is an anonymous survey of marketing spend in the construction sector for Manufacturers, Contractors, Professional Services and Suppliers (Wholesaler, Distributor, Merchant). The survey covers marketing spend as a proportion of turnover, how the budget is split, usage of digital marketing and trends between 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Complete the survey now to receive your free copy of the report when published.

The survey, which takes just 10 minutes to complete, closes mid-September, all information provided remains anonymous and will help you compile your budgets for 2014.

Understanding the different players in the industry - structural engineers

In this blog we review the role of the engineer, focusing on structural engineers. When we talk of specification selling there is a tendency to think of just the architect, but the engineer is an equally important specifier, whose role is increasing in importance. This is because of the growing complexity of the legislation which is pushing almost every aspect of a building's design, causing the architects to rely even more on the engineer.

Read the full article

What's being said - a round-up of useful marketing items

In her latest blog Su Butcher talks about the way that architects use the internet, primarily for learning; which is good news for manufacturers! She also gives some views on the profiles of your potential market. Pauley Creative has posted a blog reviewing a number of books on marketing and Specifiedby have provided a guide to modern construction marketing. Our recent Construction Media Index research looks at the communication channels used by architects and also the digital communication channels used by industry decision makers. The number of channels available to the marketer has grown considerably in recent years, and the way in which we access information has evolved, this image shows the typical information accessed online across 60 seconds. In my recent article I talk about the importance of providing information on demand.

The Building Centre has released its accompanying website to their exhibition on the 2012 London Games: www.wemade2012.co.uk

The exhibition looks at the legacy of the Games, and the website provides greater detail on the venues, infrastructure and building products that contributed. London First has published a review of the impact of office construction in the capital, annual value of work is estimated at £1.5 billion. The Mayor's '2020 Vision' claims 40,000 homes a year need to be built in London over the next decade. Knight Frank recently argued that this figure should be 52,000.

The #LoveConstruction campaign is still running, you can post your comments on twitter or via the LinkedIn Group. An essential part of driving growth for the industry is employing a younger workforce as talked about by Neil Bentley in his blog. This is also echoed by Rebecca Evans from Construction News when she writes about people power and with CITB reporting a construction skills timebomb thought needs to be given to how we sustain this.