The Surveying Industry - The Next Decade

The Surveying Industry – The Next Decade.

At this moment in history, when the world is facing and trying to deal with one of the greatest financial catastrophes of all time, it is rather daunting to set out to provide an outlook for the next decade. Added to the crisis we know about is the amazing changes that are taking place around the world and affecting the way we work and live. The old order of society is changing rapidly. Here are a few facts produced by Sony for their senior executive group last year.

• China will soon be the largest English speaking country in the world
• The predicted top ten jobs in demand in 2010 did not exist in 2004
• There are 31 billion searches on Google each month (2008) in 2006 this was 2.7 billion
• The first commercial text message was sent in 1992 - today the number of text messages sent and received each day exceeds the total population of the planet.

While no doubt these changes and the pace of them will affect us all in time, there are two key factors that I believe will affect the surveying profession over the next decade.

Firstly, we will lose a large group of baby boomers from the profession in that time and secondly, we perhaps will not attract a satisfactory level of new graduates unless we can vitalise the image of the profession.

That said I believe we can at least hypothesise on what changes or trends might occur in order to develop our own plans and strategies for the future.

Many notables such as award winning author David C McCullough, have said we need to look to history to see the future "History is a guide to navigation in perilous times" others such as Henry Ford, a brilliant 'new thinker' of his time, seemed to disagree " History is more or less bunk" he is quoted as saying. I believe that we can look at what has been happening in the profession over the past decade a put down some directions that would be the good basis for discussion when developing a long term strategic plan.

The first is size of organisations. It seems to me that we are seeing more and more movement towards larger or multi-disciplined practices. With the combination of new technology and the cost of running small practices increasing - this move towards size is a real consideration for any professional looking into the future. The need for older surveyors to retire will mean a chance for larger firms to grow through mergers or acquisitions. This added to the benefits for clients of having a one shop concept with multi-disciplined firms, only adds to the argument for size. Another dimension of this maybe an increase in the support staff for each qualified surveyor in order to service clients efficiently.

I am not suggesting there is no future for the smaller one or two partner practices but, I don't feel that this is the future of the surveying profession - no more than it has been the future for professions such as medicine or law. Whether multi-disciplined or specialist surveyor - growth is a key element for those looking to the future in my opinion.

Last year I worked with a group of surveyors who merged their business. While the result was a greater size and no great savings in overheads, the idea between the merger was more a centralisation of the business side of the practices which allowed the qualified surveyors and other disciplines to focus simply on servicing their clients, thus increasing efficiency.

That said as we face the immediate future - regardless of our firm's size - there are some basic steps that need to be taken for survival and long term growth.

With careful planning, surveying practices can be agile and move with the times. With lean operations, the surveying industry will have the ability to improve efficiencies in productivity, sustainability and to establish market share.

When looking to develop a plan to help navigate the period ahead owners should consider reviewing trading cycles, costs and expected cash flow; get support and advice from business peers; undertake a SWOT analysis of your business and consider your market.

One thing is for sure, innovation will be mandatory for surveying firms over the next decade. Surveying practices must take up the challenge to be natural and continuous innovators as they result in improved products and services, better business processes, increased customer value and stronger financial results.

There will be changing demands of customers. Customers will continue to demand increasing added value from surveying practices over the next five years. At the same time these clients expectation of the service they receive is also expected to increase. Whilst these pressures are being brought to bear, surveying practices will fully expect to have to continue to decrease the costs of their product and service offerings.

But who will do it? Even as we look into a difficult immediate future, general industry research says that only 16% of professionals are proactive in adopting change. If this is true for the surveying profession it suggests a profession without enough committed practitioners to ensure a healthy future. Certainly the 16% of proactive adopters will be busy.

Finding new ideal customers is integral to growth and survival as is retaining them. Pavlov’s rule of 20% of your clients bringing 80% of your income has never been more pertinent in your need to develop a profitable streamlined surveying practice. Dated thinking by some owners has lead them to believe they don’t have the time nor resources to market their firm and services at a time when marketing has never been more important.

The critical marketing challenges for surveying practices will be to improve the target marketing to key ideal customers by making more effective use of the internet. Improved levels of customer insight will be required to build practices that are relevant to their customers needs. Exploiting one of the oldest forms of marketing communication - word of mouth - by creating strong networks locally and on the net.

As mentioned earlier a massive issue for the surveying industry is dramatic increase in the number of business owners reaching retirement age over the next decade. This was highlighted by a recent survey undertaken by the CPA association:

• Approx 24% of SME owners are now over 60
• Another 25% are between 50 and 60

Thus we are hearing more and more business owners saying “My business is my superannuation”. With 40% of owners looking to sell in the next 5-10 years it is a concerning fact that only 38% of surveying practice owners have a plan to sell or succession
Small business owners need to get smart, plan and prepare for their business succession or exit, years in advance of their retirement for the best results. Even if they are closing their business, planning will make a big difference to the amount they walk away with. Leaving their exit planning to the last minute is not a good strategy.
That said, surely this trend signals incredible opportunities for younger surveyors looking to create practices that are sizeable, innovative, utilize technology and suit the future.