UK Construction Week 2024 - Key themes for the construction industry

So myself and the Fonn team spent the best part of the week recently at London's Excel for UK Construction Week 2024. Having finally recouped all the spent energy, its time to think about some of the key take aways for Fonn. There was an overwhelming theme - of business owners and leaders wanting to achieve more, and make projects easier. More so than other trade shows we have visited in the last few years. There was a keen interest in tracking live data, reporting on defects and resource planning.  

It feels like the industry is starting to see all the benefits of collaborative working and project management tools, which have historically only been available to the biggest companies on the more complex of projects. We spoke to a variety of construction companies of all sizes and disciplines. Concrete repair companies, residential builders and huge RC frame contractors all wanted to learn about the solutions on offer and how they could benefit from them.  

Some of the key problems that people faced included:

• Tracking issues and visibility of changes
• Time management
• Overall project management
• Miscommunication and working from incorrect documentation
• Finding good software for 3D modeling
• Finding good subcontractors

The industry still has lots of improvements to make if it wants to fully embrace tech, a lot of feedback was around how the solution could clearly offer some value, but there is still a resistance to change and adoption. There is a trend in the industry that we are not capable of using tech (I strongly disagree) and we use this as a reason to put off the shift.

Like many of our competitors, our biggest hurdle is getting the industry to move away from the old solutions like Excel to manage their projects. "We have always done it like that" seems to be the response to archaic ways of working or the Architect who said that "its not my job to collaborate with the whole team, I just work for the client and I do what I am contractually required to do".

Fonn aims to resolve these frustrations through an award winning application that is easy for the site team to use, allowing everyone on the project to communicate effectively – and I firmly believe that nearly every issue we encounter on a construction project can be traced back to poor communication.  

Want to see how Fonn addresses communication challenges for construction professionals? Read Milestone's customer story.