Here at Barbour ABI we get a unique, unparalleled view of the construction universe in the UK. Following a year full of thought-provoking articles, interviews, videos and analysis throughout 2021, we have brought back our content calendar for 2022. This time we are primarily focusing on delivering content that can help your business make the most of your time, budgets and resources. With the Barbour ABI research team, the largest in UK construction, making over 1 million calls per year to figures across the industry, we know what topics matter most to you.
Working collaboratively with partners and industry experts, our 12 themes throughout the year will bring you free articles, blog posts and white papers that you will find useful and thought-provoking.
January – Marketing Mentors
With so much of any business’ time being focused towards building sales pipelines, or getting products created and sent to market, there can be a tendency to see marketing as a cherry on top of your business that can be left behind when other tasks become too time intensive. But marketing is vital to ensuring that any business thrives and can end up saving huge amount of time and money in the long run if implemented wisely. We want to start 2022 by helping your business get its marketing off the ground with tips on how best to use your resources, no matter how limited they might be, to create successful marketing campaigns across email, your website and social media.
Read our Marketing Mentors roundup blog
Read industry expert Peter Sumpton’s view on mentorship
February – Economics within construction
The construction industry has a uniquely large impact on matters of national importance, such as GDP. But is your business factoring wider economic factors into your strategy and planning? Our Chief Economist Tom Hall gives his opinions and advice on why you need to be focusing on wider economic factors to ensure that your national strategy is well thought out and considering every angle that may affect your goals and results. We will also be speaking to our expert friends within construction to deliver the best knowledge that the industry has to offer on this topic to you.
Read the interview with Chief Economist Tom Hall
Read the interview with Commentator Brian Green
March – Strategic Budget Planning
After February’s focus on wider economic planning, throughout March we will help your business to focus on your strategic budget planning. The new financial year will be just around the corner, which means it is the perfect time to look back upon your strategy for the past 12 months and discover changes can be made to ensure success in the new financial year. Every business feels the pressure of hitting strong targets; through our content, we aim to help relieve some of that pressure. We’ll let you know the questions that you should be asking of your strategy provider, and how to make the most of the construction industry intelligence that you have access to.
April – Sustainability
In December 2021, the government released updated rules to ensure that new homes and buildings in England will produce substantially less CO2 than under previous guidance. CO2 emissions for new build homes must be around 30% lower than previous standards, with a 27% drop specified for other new buildings (including offices and shops). This will necessarily mean a huge change for massive sectors of the construction industry, including the residential sector. Throughout April we will be creating and highlighting content that delves into the impact that the race towards Net Zero will have on the industry. If you want to dive deep into the facts and figures of this ever-developing industry, then keep an eye out for reports from AMA Research that highlight alternative energy sources, such as solar panelling, solar farms, electric vehicles and much more.
Read our sustainable construction blog
May – Industry Diversity
We are proud to be official data providers and partners of UK Construction Week (UKCW), the largest event in UK Construction. In May, UKCW is hosting its first of two events this year, with the theme of Culture Change. With this in mind, our focus throughout May is going to be on diversity within construction. Despite efforts made in recent years to diversify the construction industry, there is still a distinct lack of women and minority figures within the industry. We will discover what steps are being taken to address this issue, as well as reporting back from UK Construction Week to deliver some of the key messaging around this topic to you.
Read the ESG & real meaning of value
How can the construction industry digitally transform?
June – Small Business Support
In 2021 the Federation of Small Businesses recorded that there are 5.5. million small businesses in the UK, accounting for 99.9% of the business population. They may be small in employee size, but not in power. Barbour ABI recognises the importance of every small business and understand that they may not have all the resources or skills in-house that are needed to thrive in the modern business world. That’s where we can help. June is the month that we will be specifically focusing on support for small businesses within our content, looking at topics such as how to be as efficient as possible in your sales and marketing efforts; how to strategise and decide upon where to best utilise the resources that you do currently have in-house; and how to improve your knowledge and skills in order to be best placed in the future to make the most of your small but powerful team!
July – Optimising client experience
Businesses understandably focus a huge amount of time and energy on seeking out new business, but many don’t spend as much time thinking about the experience of a client once they’ve purchased a service and been onboarded. Customer service experts Zendesk have stated that 62% of B2B customers buy more from a business after receiving good customers service, proving that strong repeat business can take a huge amount of pressure off your new sales machine and provide consistently repeating revenue. Throughout July we’ll be providing content to ensure that you are best positioned to focus on the most vital aspect that your business has – its clients.
August – Planning and execution
August is traditionally one of the quietest months of the year for the construction industry. Does quiet always have to mean lost time in business? Certainly not. Throughout August, we will provide you with tips and tricks on how to use your quiet time wisely and streamline your processes for when the busy periods inevitably start again. How do you do that? Plan, plan, plan! Planning and developing content take time, so whilst the industry has a bit of downtime, let’s take advantage and be well prepared for the busier periods ahead!
September – Developing efficiencies
After a typically quiet August for the construction industry, September tends to come roaring in to bring about a busy autumn period for many businesses, and the industry as a whole. This is the perfect time for you to utilise all of the preparation work that you did in August and ensure that you have the jumpstart on your competitors when things get busy. As friendly experts to the construction industry, Barbour ABI are here to help you cope with the workload when the industry begins to boom. Throughout September we want to help you get efficient to ensure the best return on investment for your sales and marketing teams, and across your business as a whole.
October – Mental Health
October is National Mental Health Awareness month. Statistically, men are far more likely than women to take their own lives. This fact has inevitably led to the male-dominated construction industry to have devastating levels of suicide within its workforce. We will be speaking to experts, sharing stories, providing resources and doing everything that we can to support everybody within construction and beyond to know that it is okay to ask for help before things become overwhelming.
November – Future of the Industry
What does the future of construction look like? With huge advances possible in construction technology, automation, materials, processes, relationships, diversity, and countless other facets, it is impossible to know exactly what the next Industrial Revolution might look like. But a revolution, or more likely, many mini-revolutions, will occur in the coming decades. In November we will look at what those changes might mean for the wider industry and economy as a whole, and how your business can take advantage of these adaptations to get ahead of your competitors and stay ahead for many years to come.
December – Reflecting upon 2022 and Strategising for 2023
2022 will be over faster than we know it! A new year on the horizon, coupled with a typically quiet period in construction, means time to reflect upon on the successes of the current year and seeing where you can improve for 2023. As we did at the end of 2021 and into the beginning of 2022, we will be here to get you ready for 2023 ahead of time, helping to build a strategy for the new year that will set you ahead of the competition. Get ahead of the competition, reset your growth ambitions and get ready to make 2023 a year your business thrives.
