Winning in the future

In what looks set to become a more testing future for the construction and infrastructure sector, this report looks at what factors will produce the highest performance from construction project teams. 

In collaboration with the executive search experts, Odgers Berndtson, we spoke to a wide field of experts; from construction leaders to a former Special Military Unit officer, through to an academic futurologist. We have identified the top five ideas most likely to help forward thinking companies define the winning teams of the future. The construction sector is becoming one of the most competitive of the truly global industries. 

In today’s tough international financial climate, many countries face a shortage of good construction skills, so a business's ability to find and retain the best people is often what defines the sector’s winners. As a result, firms are increasingly seeking a flexible talent pool from across the world, to be deployed rapidly to a new project, bid or team. But that model, where this agile responsiveness underpins a firm’s success, is now under real pressure. 

The big issues are both political and technological. On both sides of the Atlantic, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, we are seeing policies on the horizon that could directly limit the speed and freedom of movement by project experts. 

This is at a time when the market is becoming increasingly globally competitive in the race to squeeze margins and speed delivery – with new technologies, modular design and new methods of prefabricated construction, for example, redefining the traditional make-up of the construction team. 

It is clear that the construction sector is already under pressure to look constantly at how to drive greater value out of the way teams actually work together and operate – through innovations in the technology, working practices and management they use. What exactly, however, will define the highly adaptable, successful project team able to compete and win in a more testing future economy?