Should Designers and Contractors Become Technology Companies?

This was the question posed to a panel that I participated in at a recent AEC industry CEO conference.

As technology disruption continues to accelerate in our industry, it’s a topic that’s likely being discussed in boardrooms around the world.

Personally, I think design firms and construction ompanies absolutely should become technology companies, but becoming a tech company is much different than becoming a software company.

Technology has always disrupted engineering. Consider the shift from bumwad to computer-aided design (CAD), and from CAD to building information modeling (BIM) and geospatial information systems (GIS).

The difference today is that the changes are happening faster, at a pace that upskilling and behavioral adaptation can’t maintain. This rate of change has many seeing today’s technology disruption as something different, instilling fear of commoditization or even obsolescence.

Instead of fearing those things, we should see this disruption as an opportunity to not necessarily engineer faster or at lower costs, but to engineer better.

This is the time for more optioneering, for finding more sustainable solutions, and for improving quality and safety. The last time we experienced a fear for commoditization of engineering services was during the global financial crisis of 2008.