In the last, and largest, category–housing the final 4 individual trends–the transformation of business covered some of the most prevalent plot lines from this past year, as well. It was said that 41% of the construction workforce will retire by 2031, and that there are simply more people leaving the industry that there are coming into it. It’s going to not only change the makeup of our labor groups, but, also, the nature of their skillsets.
Tied to all that new, compact, sustainable, and alternative machinery are expensive price tags. An audience member brought up their costs versus how long before they become obsolete, giving the turnover of cell phone tech as an example. A valuable question. indeed. Feuling replied that they expect a shift away from capital expenditures, towards subscription based programs. This is also applies to the way that the construction/maintenance industries might also adapt into non-traditional models of business too, but didn’t give specifics.
Again, digital data reared its head and, along with it, cyber security. Spending on security has increased 188% between 2018-2019, and has likely only increased more since the pandemic. With all these new pools of contraction data, the real value of its collection will emerge. It has inherent value, and businesses may find creative ways to profit from the data itself.
The general sense was a large agreement about the rapid changes coming to the industry, but there was a lack of consensus on exactly what would happen and when. The full report from AEM can be downloaded and reviewed in detail on their website.
