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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$er
November 2018 #10232 Page #95
4 Building Material Company Challenges (and One Big Surprise) I Learned at the Whizard Summit
By Mark Mitchell, Whizard Strategy
I
’m not just a teacher at my Whizard Summits, I’m also a student. I show up to each event ready to share my knowledge, but I also learn a lot from the companies who attend.
The major thing I learn about at each of these events are the biggest challenges building material companies are currently facing. These challenges fall into four categories: • Challenges I was already aware of, which validate my thinking • Challenges I was not aware of, which educate me • Challenges my attendees are aware of but don’t know how to deal with • Challenges my attendees don’t see, but that is so obvious to me, I can barely understand how they don’t recognize them Some of the companies that attend the Summit also surprise me by being ahead of their competitors in some unexpected areas. Let me start with where I was most pleasantly surprised, and then we’ll dig into those challenges everyone is facing.
A Pleasant Surprise: Building Material Companies Are Taking Action For over a year, I have been advising building material companies about the growth of off-site construction. This major development is going to bring huge changes to the way they do business and it’s going to bring them very quickly. When I write about this, I get more interest and comments than when I write about any other subject. Still, I have felt that most building material companies don’t recognize how important this is to their future. I was expecting the attendees to tell me they were aware of these coming changes and were starting to think about them, but because business is so good today as they really haven’t put serious thought into it and certainly have no concrete action plan. I might have underestimated a lot of these companies. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of attendees who not only recognize how the boom in off-site construction will change their business, but have already taken action by meeting with Katerra and some of the other major companies leading this change. Continued next page
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