Seizing opportunity in today’s construction technology ecosystem

1. What are the emerging trends from this year’s research?

Three key trends are shaping the industry: emerging constellations of solutions around established use cases, accelerating technology investment, and an expanding set of promising use cases.

‘Constellations’ of solutions emerging around established use cases

In our continuous mapping of the construction technology landscape, we see the concept of different “constellations” of connected solutions emerging around established use cases, which serve as indicators of what technologies are gaining the most traction and where their impact can be expected to rapidly increase in the near future. Today, the most prominent constellations include 3-D printing, modularization, and robotics; digital twin technology; artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics; and supply chain optimization and marketplaces.

Increasing and evolving technology investment

Through the mapping of the investment flows we found two critical insights:

Investment has doubled in the past decade: Last year, we found that construction technology companies had garnered $10 billion in investment between 2011 and early 2017. Our updated research has pointed not only to a greater volume of outside investment but also an acceleration in investment. Between 2008 and 2012, construction technology received $9 billion in cumulative investment. Between 2013 and February 2018, that number doubled to $18 billion, largely driven by mergers and acquisitions.

An expanding set of use cases

Last year, our research focused on technology in one phase of the asset life cycle: construction and commissioning. As we expanded our taxonomy to look at the entire asset life cycle, we found that two phases are attracting the most growth: construction and commissioning and operations and maintenance (Exhibit 4). Other phases tend to be already established—for instance, preconstruction and back-office—while others are small or still maturing.

2. How will the market evolve in the next 2–3 years?

Mapping the number of transactions in each of the 38 use cases against the number of new companies in the past five years in that space reveals a detailed picture of the current construction market. Four archetypes emerge:

  1. Talent acquisition. In the upper right quadrant, we find both a high concentration of new companies and a high number of transactions in machine learning, among several other use cases. This quadrant can be described as “talent grab,” which means that companies are using acquisitions to onboard new talent and skills.
  2. Emerging. In the lower right quadrant, we find use cases, such as deep learning, where there are a lot of new companies but not a lot of transactions, suggesting these use cases are primed to emerge into the tech investment space in the next few years.
  3. Maturing. In the upper left quadrant, we find use cases, such as document management, with a lot of transactions but relatively fewer new companies, suggesting that these use cases are dominated by relatively established companies operating in a fragmented market. These areas may thus be facing consolidation in the near future.
  4. Established or unproven. Finally, in the lower left quadrant we find established or unproven use cases, such as enterprise resource planning, where few new companies and few transactions are underway. These markets may be saturated—but for the exception of some use cases, such as laser scanning, that have simply not yet realized momentum.

3. How can the industry accelerate its transition to a digital future?

While technology has dramatically advanced in the E&C sector, there is much room for improvement. There are several actions that AEC firms, technology providers, and project owners can take to accelerate construction technology in the coming years.

AEC firms:

Invest in talent and skill building: AEC leaders must begin to expand skill sets among existing employees as well as hire new candidates with technical expertise. To start, AEC firms can explore talent pools in digital native companies, even those outside the E&C industry; a particular focus should be given to candidates in other industries that have undergone a digital transition. These individuals can be paired with the right industry leaders and reach in the organization to integrate new and existing expertise. To upskill current employees, firms should bring in training programs in new technologies—for instance, to train employees in 3-D printing—or set aside funds for capability building.

Actively engage with the start-up ecosystem: This action can take a variety of forms, one of which is investing directly in start-ups through a corporate VC arm. Here, AEC firms may be challenged by entrepreneurs who are hesitant to accept capital from large players, as it compromises their ability to work with a funder’s competitor. AEC firms can manage this caution by exploring other, less risky forms of engaging with start-ups: for instance, investing indirectly through a VC fund or partnering selectively for piloting or codeveloping solutions.

Establish conditions of success for piloting and scaling: AEC firms can prime themselves to be early adopters of promising technology by setting aside funding for the purpose of experimentation. As pilot solutions prove their value, AEC firms can use a helpful acid test for evaluating the longer-term use of a technology: whether a project manager is willing to accommodate its cost in their project budget. AEC firms can also bring in outside start-up expertise as needed, as building an in-house development team is often labor intensive and time consuming. Partnering with start-ups that can bring specific capabilities (for example, product development through rapid iteration) can be particularly valuable.

Tech providers:

Listen to the end user and adapt: Solutions in the ecosystem are often developed by looking for a problem. Indeed, we find passionate start-up founders looking for an application of their novel solution in the industry, instead of truly understanding the industry’s needs. To that end, start-ups—especially if teams are from outside the AEC industry—must listen closely to the needs of AEC firms and adapt product offerings. This effort will consist of focusing on validated customer needs; in this fragmented landscape, it is imperative to validate the real need (versus a “nice-to-have” application).

Plan for the journey to integration and consolidation: As described above, unlocking real value from the technology ecosystem will require integration across multiple use cases and clusters. As the industry evolves, start-ups must therefore forge a “co-opetition” strategy—that is, how to simultaneously collaborate and compete. This is especially true given the multiple pivots that start-ups undergo (for example, starting with one use case and shifting to a new one). Start-ups in the early stage will need to plan on an evolving go-to-market strategy.

Owners:

Enforce a strong and sharable data foundation: All project participants need to work with one shared data backbone in one system, known as a common data environment (CDE). This data will need to be made available to all project participants, with up-front agreement from all.

Align on supportive contract strategies: Digital participation needs to be part of the bidding contracts for all project participants. Indeed, a digital project should emulate an integrated project delivery (IPD) setup, which can not only improve outcomes and accountability but also circumvent the hostility of an adversarial contractual environment.

Identify and focus on critical use cases: Owners need to focus on understanding their organization’s unique economic case for technology. While it may be appealing to pursue the most cutting-edge tools and applications, owners must identify and prioritize the use cases that will have both a long-term impact and a medium- to short-term impact to generate momentum. Only by developing a concrete and customized understanding of the return on investment, as well as the risk and disruption to existing functions, can they ensure that new technology adoption is optimized and sequenced according to pressing needs and their distinct circumstances.


Gone are the days when the construction industry can ignore the burgeoning set of technology solutions across the asset life cycle. We expect investment, competition, and consolidation to continue to accelerate as use cases and start-ups serving the industry proliferate. As predictions come to life and new capabilities infiltrate the field, team, and office, the winners will be the ones that adapt—sooner rather than later.

This article is from McKinsey. The full article can be found here.