Unlocking new revenue streams in the construction industry

Learning from other sectors

The construction industry, one of the least digitalized sectors thus far, is finally exploring digital technologies to drive growth.

The key factors driving this change include the steep increase in demand, severe pressure on companies to compress costs and project timescales, and stringent global sustainability goals.

There is a vast potential for the construction sector to seek out, learn, adapt, and apply established thinking from other sectors. We discuss the digital solutions that can help construction companies unlock new revenue streams while releasing the pressure on top and bottom lines. Digitalizing operations will help construction companies deliver customer-centricity, offer value-added services, and more.

Identifying the need for connected construction

It can help industry players improve their digital maturity.

AI-driven connected technologies can help all stakeholders across the construction value chain, including engineering firms, contractors, and industry ecosystem partners, realize the benefits of storing information in a centralized location. By bringing assets, people, processes, and job sites onto one platform, these technologies can reduce downtime, optimize asset utilization and efficiency, and enable greater visibility into operations.

However, stakeholders must address a few challenges to enable remote decision-making and monetize enormous amounts of data (company, end customer, suppliers).

Creating value across the construction spectrum

A digital strategy with data at the core will be pivotal in accelerating technology transformation.

While emerging technologies ensure that existing infrastructure is optimized, the future mandates agility with ‘always on’ and ‘fully connected’ as key tenets. It will require integrated systems that provide real-time information across touchpoints (including suppliers, clients, employees, and projects) and capture data through all phases (plan, design, construct, operate, recycle, or demolish) of pre-construction and construction projects.

Establishing such systems requires companies to focus on creating the right culture and environment and measuring performance KPIs across the value chain (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Digital construction platform

Such a digital construction platform will enable value creation for all stakeholders; for instance, with effective data utilization and automation, suppliers and partners can ensure high-quality construction and supply chain management, and customers can receive prompt operations support and building-related services based on short- and long-term forecasts.

New revenue streams

As the industry enthusiastically embraces digitalization, it is discovering newer penetration and revenue growth avenues.

Some of these new revenue streams include:

1. Developing a fully integrated supply chain solution, encompassing commercial product design and supply chain orchestration solutions as a service
2. Conceptualizing advanced products with embedded digital capabilities such as IoT sensors—that are potential market differentiators
3. Enabling data monetization to unlock additional service offerings such as subscriptions in monitoring assets, servicing, and warranties.

Industry players can explore other use cases by identifying the link between suppliers and manufacturers to create a seamless extended enterprise. Leveraging customer data analytics, construction firms can gain valuable insights to inform smart cities’ planning using AI.

Staying on top of the continually evolving construction landscape

E&C companies that adopt data and digital measures can maximize their strengths and offer quality services at a better cost and speed. They will also be better positioned to realize the end goal of sustainable architecture and maximize human strengths with digital technologies. These digital frontrunners of the construction industry will drive productivity improvements and provide added value by accumulating multi-level data and utilizing the same.