Over the past few weeks, I have been preparing the information provided to you in the June 10 IABSC meeting, “Regaining Altitude – Managing Industry Supply Chain Challenges”. Putting together this information provided me with a valuable opportunity, that of being able to discuss with some member firms the critical issues facing them. This enabled our industry association to provide perspective on the magnitude of the issues, how widespread the issues are, and even to project some potential solutions to the challenges faced by our industry.
I wanted to share with you some additional thoughts related to these critical times. According to some post meeting comments I have received, the meeting seemed timely. Blake Storms, CEO of Unified Supply, spoke on the impact of the ‘Bullwhip Effect’ that is being seen in the marketplace. The subject certainly makes common sense. You may be interested to read an article that appeared on June 15 regarding this topic. Clearly, our perspectives are on par with other industries around the USA.
One panel participant commented that it was amazing to see how closely aligned the impacts are across the industry – all disciplines and regions. Another IABSC member commented that he now has some concerns regarding project activities in his pipeline, and he was going to have to revalidate some of his aging business opportunities.
From Faithful & Gould, we had a presentation of economic data based on their indices and reporting. In our preparation, we had discussed how the views of our membership would likely be a bit more focused than the national or regional surveys. Steve Willcock, the presenter of the data, noted the difference. Steve felt that the others provided great perspectives. He is making the presented insights available to IABSC members via the following links:
https://www.fgould.com/americas/articles/making-data-driven-decisions-on-the-impacts-of-/
https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/0226e880-e618-4a00-acbe-6f7bdf040202/page/PvELC
https://www.fgould.com/worldwide/articles/the-index-prediction-tool-improving-how-we-fore/
Steve has also offered that if anyone would like to get access to F&G monthly Construction Data Intelligence report that was referenced in the meeting then please contact him via email (steve.willcock@fgould.com) and he will add you to the email distribution list.
This effort was an eye opening, educational experience for me. It highlights the value of this business association, and our ability to share industry topics in an open forum. Yet, there remain more questions than answers on this topic and its impact on our industry. Please be sure to join our meeting in July, as David Delaney hosts ‘Regaining Altitude – BHS Consultants Roundtable’.
As we continue to provide more topical business education, I encourage you to invite colleagues to attend our meetings. We plan to get back to in person hybrid meetings in August. I look forward to that and anticipate seeing you in person again at that time.
