Horizons Spring/Summer 2019

INDUSTRY UPDATE CONSTRUCTION

Next Decade Trends in Construction by Tim McCarthy, CPA

S everal industries have seen advancements in information technology cause massive disruptions to industry segments over the past years. In many cases, smaller companies that invested in technology and were innovative surpassed larger competing companies that were glorified as industry leaders.

corporate revenue spent on IT, 1%, of all of the 19 industry groups surveyed.”

The use of technology provides a good opportunity for construction companies that want to gain a leg-up on their competition by becoming safer, more efficient and more effective in the execution of their work. With the efficiencies gained, this could potentially lead to margin expansion on contracts and an increased job capacity over time. For construction companies, margin expansion is either dictated by an increase in revenue on a job, a reduction in cost on the job or both. From a revenue perspective, the economic environment of the marketplace and the individual needs of the owners

Within the construction industry, most companies are still reluctant to invest in technology to aid in the construction process.

In a 2014 IT Key Metrics benchmarking survey performed by Gartner Benchmark Analytics, “the construction materials and resources industry group had the lowest percentage of

Next Decade Trends in Construction

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