Importance of Time Management for Business Owners

Written by Orbital Shift | Sep 30, 2016 12:44:00 PM

Business owners can, and should, cultivate a workplace that values time management. Here are some tips for business owners to improve time management in the workplace.

Why Time Management is Essential for Leadership

Business owners and managers lead by example. The values and work ethic displayed by a company's decision makers have a direct influence on company culture, and many times, on a business' profitability. Time management improves the efficiency and effectiveness of a business, and business owners should continuously work on developing, or improving, their own time management skills.

Time Management Benefits

Time management is one of the most important skills to have, but it is often a concept that many businesses, and people, struggle with. Small businesses, in particular, cannot afford to waste time with bad time management and inefficiency. However, the benefits of good time management practices are immeasurable. Businesses that utilize good time management are better positioned to consistently deliver their product, or service, on-time.

Good time management also means that a business is able to solve problems that arise without it significantly impacting day-to-day operations. This is essential for businesses that rely on constant output to increase ROI - a planned, structured schedule provides extra time for problem-solving or unforeseen circumstances.

Business owners can, and should, cultivate a workplace that values time management. Here are some tips for business owners to improve time management in the workplace.

1. Prioritize

   Prioritizing each item on your to-do list will help you stay focused on hitting your day-to-day, and overall, goals. Ask yourself, "What absolutely needs to be done by the end of the day?" Rank each item by its importance - or deadline - and start working down the list. If anything unexpected comes up during the day, you can feel better knowing that the most time-sensitive tasks have already been addressed.

2. Set Measurable Goals

   This is essential for both business owners, and employees. Establishing clear-cut goals will help you measure the success of your work and effectively track progress that you have made toward that goal. As a company, you should be asking questions like "Where do we want to be next year, at this time? How much revenue do we need to make next month to stay on track?"

   The answers to your questions should form measurable, tangible goals that you can communicate to your employees. Time management means that you are not only productive with your time, but your productivity is focused on achieving your company's goals.

3. Plan Ahead

   Planning ahead today saves you time, and unnecessary stress, tomorrow. Once you have established your goals, you can also start working on a feasible timeline to reach them.

   An important part of planning is to be realistic about what you can achieve and how quickly you can work through that timeline. Don't fall into the trap of being overly-ambitious with every deadline - although time is money, ensuring that you have enough time to deliver a high-quality product, or service, should always be a top priority. Never meeting deadlines can discourage your employees as well, so be sure to set reasonable goals and communicate to your team exactly what needs to be accomplished to meet them.

4. Know When to Delegate

   As a business owner, your time is often divided between day-to-day operations and big-picture responsibilities. Knowing when it's appropriate to delegate some of those tasks to other team members can save you quite a bit of time. It's also a great opportunity to motivate your employees with increased responsibilities and challenges.

   A great way to approach what should, and shouldn't be delegated, is to estimate the time it would take for someone else to complete the task. Would it involve extra training? Would I spend more time reviewing their work than the time it would take me to do it myself? These are all questions that you should be asking before making the decision to delegate.

Using Software for Time Management

Time management, like many things, can be much easier when utilizing helpful tools. Time management systems, like employee time tracker apps, provide a simple, straightforward way to manage your staff schedules. Cloud-based time tracking systems allow you to manage your employees' schedules, as well as your own, right from your smartphone or desktop.

Tracking time on a shared interface also allows business owners to demonstrate transparency and teamwork. With the ability to quickly manage schedules and assign tasks, you can rest assured that your employees know what is expected of them, and you can ensure that every employee is pulling equal weight in the company's success.

Test Before You Buy

Finding the best solution for managing your time often requires a bit of trial and error. What works for one business owner may not necessarily work for another, and we encourage you to try out a few different techniques to find one that truly helps you manage your time.

At Orbital Shift, we offer a 14-day free trial to give you an opportunity to use our workforce management software risk-free, with no hidden fees or charges. We know the value of time management for business owners, and we want you to experience our software before you make the decision to fully utilize it for your organization.

10 Tips to Find and Win the Best Clients

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John Rampton

VIP CONTRIBUTOR

Entrepreneur and Connector

     

December 19, 2014 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

With 2014 rapidly coming to a close, there’s no better time to plan for next year. As an entrepreneur or business owner, that planning should include methods to attract new clients.

However, instead of just attracting any client for the sake of a sale, put your energy and resources into landing the absolute best clients for your company. Here are 10 tips for accomplishing that goal.

1. Know who your clients are.

If you want to find the best clients for your business, then you have to really know whom to target by narrowing your focus. Tom Patty suggests in the Wall Street Journal that you ask questions like "What do they do?” and "What do they value?" Once you have this information, you can tailor messages specifically to attract them on the networks where they’ll discover you.

2. Have a better voice mail.

Instead of leaving a generic and basic voicemail, record a voicemail that offers a call-to-action. Mark Heinz of Heinz Marketing LLC says your voicemail should answer a question, direct them to your website or tell them how to schedule an appointment. His gives this example:

“Hi, this is Matt from Acme Products. I’m currently helping another customer, but can’t wait to help you, too! Please leave me a short message with your number and I’ll call back as soon as possible. In the meantime, please visit my website, at www.AcmeProducts.com, for a sneak preview of our new products and promotions.”

My personal voicemail tells people to text or email me. This is the best way to get ahold of me. I don't like to talk on the phone. Whatever you prefer, make sure your voicemail is to the point and has a clear call to action.

Related: 3 Surprising Ways to Find New Clients

3. Attend trade shows.

Attending trade shows is a great way to network with influencers and prospective clients within your industry. More importantly, however, trade shows are a great way to also discover how your industry is changing.

While at a trade show I like to hang out around the speaker sessions. That's typically where the people who pay top dollar go. They want to learn. Those are the people that I've always had the best luck with becoming my customers. They are people paying to learn, not just in the exhibit hall paying to acquire customers.

4. Start a newsletter.

Create some riveting, unique content and then give it away for free by having site visitors sign-up for a newsletter. Not only does this establish you as expert, it will also give you the email addresses of prospective clients. Now that you have these email addresses, you can begin to communicate with these important, potential clients.

5. Help the local community.

You can build trust with top-notch clients by supporting a local community organization or sharing advice with others. Patrick Bishop, author of Money-Tree Marketing, suggests to Entrepreneur that you "Set up a fund-raising program that benefits a school, like a discount card. At the same time the kids [are selling them, they are] promoting your business.”

6. Work with other companies.

My buddy Brian Honigman taught me this trick. By teaming up with complimentary businesses, you're spreading the word about your business. Furthermore, you’re gaining exposure to clients who may be interested in the products or services that you’re offering. For example, if you are selling a line of pet grooming product, then you might leave brochures at local vet offices or place ads on websites that focus on pet care.

In short, you want to have presence where your top prospects are hanging out. I've used this successfully over the past three years to win over the best clients in the industry. It works amazingly well. Teaming up with other companies can provide much more credibility that going at it alone.

Related: The Fastest Way to Find New Customers

7. Make them feel special.

If you really want to win over clients, go all out to impress them. Content marketing expert Nick Davis suggested to me years ago that "I needed to make each person I meet and interact with feel special in some way. When you make someone feel special it creates a bond with them. Even in the online world, make them feel that connection."

Since learning this technique, I have started hugging most people that I meet. When you meet me, I'm going to hug you. It's my thing. This makes people feel special and it's something that most people don't realize but feel. It's helped me over the years to create amazing relationships that have turned into long-term clients.

8. Showcase your work.

Clients want to see results. So, how can you show them these results if you’ve never worked with them? The best place to start is by creating a powerful online portfolio.

Kristi Hines notes on FreshBooks that there several ways to share your portfolio online. These range from:

• A full website.
• A one-page portfolio on your blog.
• Links on social networks.

Once you’ve settled on the best location to showcase your work, consider including corporate logos of companies you’ve previously worked with and a video highlighting what you do best or examples of previous work.

By creating an online portfolio you’re not only giving clients an idea of the quality of work you provide, you’re also establishing their trust in that you can handle the job at hand.

9. Ask for referrals.

Don’t hesitate to ask your current clients for referrals. As the American Institute of CPAs notes, “Current clients lead to future clients.” Why? Because we tend to trust people we know. Just remember to thank clients for their referral by offering a gesture of thanks, such as taking them out to dinner or offering them a discount.

10. Help people.

I learned this lesson at a startup community I've been apart of for years called StartupGrind. They encourage people to not "pitch" each other but ask the other person how you can help them. These types of relationship have proved to be the best relationships I've ever had.  It has gotten me countless clients as well as lasting relationships.

Use these tips to win over the best clients in the world.  The more you have a plan, the better your business will succeed over the coming years.  What additional tips have you found to win clients?

Related: Aim Directly at Your Target Market to Land New Clients

5 Keys to Building Business

5 Keys to Building Business Relationships

BY ELIZABETH HARR  |   APRIL 10, 2019

Few would argue with the notion that building business relationships is critical in professional services. And while marketing efforts put toward pricing and service strategy, or articulation of a firm’s competitive position, their real advantage lies in the strength of their relationships.
An important body of Hinge’s research, Inside the Buyer’s Brain, Second Edition, found that most buyers who are trying to select a firm rely heavily on a firm’s relevant experience and expertise. These factors are represented by the top two bars in the chart below. This makes intuitive sense — if buyers know you are an expert in your service area, they are more likely to buy from you.

Just like any personal relationship, business relationships require continual maintenance.  A mutual benefit and ongoing communication are important ingredients to success. In the long run, having close and trusting contacts will give you an edge, especially when other marketing tactics aren’t working.  Here are 5 keys to building and maintaining business relationships:

1. Routinely Reach Out to Important Contacts

It is impossible to have weekly or monthly conversations with all of the contacts in your CRM system.  But you can focus on the valuable ones.  Pinpoint your best clients, partners, and vendors and continually check up on them. Express your interest in their business and let them know that you are here to help. If you want to keep the relationship alive make this outreach routine.  If you let too much time go by, your eventual contact will seem less genuine. And don’t ignore the power of your LinkedIn connections. When executed properly, a social media strategy is the digital sister to in-person networking – and it can be fast and efficient way to ensure your are routinely reaching out.
Download the The Visible Firm Guide

2. Offer Help Before You Ask for Help

Building business relationships doesn’t mean tapping into your resources whenever you need something.  If the only time you ever contact a former client is when you have a new service offering, your gesture won’t seem authentic.  Similarly, if you call your vendor only when you are looking for a good deal, don’t expect to get one.
Spend time figuring out how you can help your important business contacts. What value can you offer to spark the conversation?

3. Ask for Feedback

Instead of assuming your clients and vendors are happy, ask! Open communication is a basic component of any relationship. When you ask your contacts how they feel, you promote a two-way conversation that can uncover areas for improvement.  Some firms conduct client satisfaction surveys to gather feedback.  But usually it’s best to pick up the phone and talk to your closest contact at a firm.  If this is your top client, you want to make sure they are content.

4. Find Ways to Connect with Less Valuable Contacts

As new contacts enter your world, try to build trust over time with email marketing.  Because you can’t interact with everyone in your email address book on a weekly basis, leverage technology to do some of the work for you.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems allow you to set up email sequences that will routinely send email to your contacts. This is no substitute for a real relationship, but it will at least keep your firm on the top of people’s minds.
Note that this does not mean blasting your list with non targeted emails.  Instead, focus on educational content that your audience will find relevant and practical. There are two types of emails to consider:

1. Educational emails provide content that is meant to be informative. These emails give something of value to the reader without asking for anything in return. Because educational emails are highly valued by your audience, they should make up about 80% of the emails that you send out.
2. Offer emails are for when you want the recipient to do something, such as download a presentation or paper, and you are hoping to move them to a deeper level of engagement. Whether this engagement is a meeting or trying out one of your services, you want them to take a specific next step. Although offer emails should account for the other 20% of emails, you wouldn’t want to send these until you’ve created value for your audience. And offer emails should only go to folks who have already downloaded several pieces of your content. Unless specifically requested, you absolutely would not want an offer email to be sent to someone you just met at a networking event.

Here are a few tips we’ve discovered for highly effective email marketing:

• Ensure the look and feel of your email reflects your brand at every touchpoint.
• Ensure they are mobile friendly.
• Segment your distribution list so you can be strategic about which emails go to which list.
• Remember the 80/20 rule. No matter how many or how few emails you send out, the balance of them (80%) should be educational, while the remainder (20%) are offers.
• Make sure you have a way for people to unsubscribe.
• Consider the subject line carefully. To encourage high open rates, go with 40 characters or less, and be very clear. Subject lines aren’t the time to be too clever or leave too much up to the reader’s imagination. Just say what the email is about. Trust us, the payoff will be there.
• Lastly, be aware that there are certain trigger words that can send your email straight into the spam or junk folder. Words like “cheap” or “sale,” and sometimes even “free,” when placed in the subject line can signal the email is spam and it won’t get through the filter.

5. Educate, don’t sell.

If building relationships requires trust and credibility, then educating – as opposed to selling – is a big enabler of professional services relationships.
Download the The Visible Firm Guide
And the most effective way to educate is through a consistent flow of thought leadership. By definition, thought leadership marketing makes your expertise highly visible to the public. Regardless of whether your experts are publishing on your blog, in other publications, on social media, or elsewhere, their association with your firm makes you more visible to potential leads. The depth of content required to build your profile as a high visibility expert means that potential buyers have the opportunity to learn a lot about your firm before making initial contact.
This level of visibility and expertise increases the trust and credibility of your firm. Think of it this way: there’s a reason that popular brands at a grocery store sell better than store brands, despite typically coming with a higher price tag. People trust what they know.
In your experience, what are some other ways of building business relationships in the professional services?
Additional Resources: 

• Understand your buyers. Win more business. Read the latest findings from Inside the Buyer’s Brain, Second Edition, the biggest study of professional services buyers to date. It’s free!
• Join Hinge University and take the in-depth courses and read the step-by-step How-Tos to take your brand to a new level of sophistication and engagement.

How Hinge Can Help:
Let Hinge help you create and implement a research-based strategy to increase your firm’s visibility and growth. Hinge’s Visible Firm^® Program is the leading marketing program for professional services firms that want to market themselves like industry leaders. Ask about it today!

*A *DICK*🍆 OF NO MERCY🙉*🔞❤️🍓🍓

*A *DICK*🍆 OF NO MERCY🙉*🔞❤️🍓🍓

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For a cock that was not completely erect, it was already quite sizeable.

My body buzzed with excitement as I got dressed.

I carefully picked out my outfit. I opted for a blue figure-hugging dress. It was knee-length but quite a bit of cleavage peeked out from the V-neckline.

As I slipped on my heels, I gave myself one last glance in the mirror. I hoped my look impressed Charles. I was meeting him for the first time.

Charles and I had been online buddies for a long time. We shared a lot of sexual fantasies and even enjoy some sex chat from time to time. I have never really been a fan of phone sex, but I liked it for the entertainment value. Charles blew me away one day when he sent me a picture of his dick. I literally gasped when I saw it. That shit was huge, the hugest I had ever seen. If I had to guess, I would have put that dick at about 9 inches.

We soon had a tradition where he sent me a dick pic every morning. He graced me with all angles of his cock and I spent hours looking and lusting after it. Sadly, he lived in Kasoa so my fantasy of being able to ride that dick had to be postponed. I touched myself so many times, imagining it was him sliding into me but that only left me wanting him more.

Now I had my chance. He was coming to Lapaz for the weekend and he dedicated a night to pleasing me. I was beside myself.

Since we did not want any distractions, we chose to meet up at a hotel. I arrived at our room, excited and ready. He was already there, patiently waiting for me.

We laid in bed together for a while, getting comfortable in each other's company. We engaged in some small talk after I asked him how the journey to here.

Soon, I could not take the waiting anymore. "Can I just see it?" I asked him.

He smiled knowingly, not needing to ask me what I meant.

I unbuckled his jeans carefully and unzipped it. I licked my bottom lip in anticipation as I removed his trousers. I could see the outline of his penis through his shorts and my heart began to pound. Slowly, I pulled down the band of his boxers to reveal his semi-erect penis. For a cock that was not completely erect, it was already quite sizeable. I discarded his shorts and I bent my head down to truly appreciate him.

Using my mouth, I covered the tip of his dick. It jerked slightly in my mouth and I wrapped my lips around it. I swirled my tongue around the tip excitedly and he groaned.

I began to cover more and more length with my mouth, sucking and lubricating him as I went. The more I sucked his cock, the bigger he became. It was thrilling, the way it kept filling my mouth and never seemed to stop growing. Soon, I was able to use my mouth to cover only about half of his cock.

I drew my head back and looked at the cock in admiration. My breath caught in my throat. His dick was bigger than I imagined. I wrapped both my hands around it and began to suck the remaining length. I moved my hands and my tongue in tandem with each other as I stroked his whole shaft making sure to swirl my tongue around him as I went.

He groaned even louder now as I gave his cock my all. It truly was a magnificent dick and I really wanted to impress. I let my own desire for it build as I was determined to get as wet as possible for this cock.

After a few minutes of mouth-fucking him, I sat up to take off my dress. He sat up too to help me undress and take off his own shirt.

As soon as we were both naked and trembling with excitement, I pushed him down and straddled him. I brought the tip of his big cock to my entrance and bore down so it invaded my slit. I held my breath as the head of his cock teased the entrance of my pussy. I pushed down further to take him in some more and I cried out as his cock split my pussy open. Using my hand, I could feel that there was still more length to cover. I was worried for the first time. Had I bitten off more than I could chew?

The more I pushed down, the more painful it got. He was very patient with me and let me go at my own pace. When I was finally able to sit on his dick so completely that my ass was resting on his thighs, I felt like I was about to explode. His cock had filled me so completely and the edges of my pussy were stretched to the extreme. I sat that way for a few moments, scared to move in case it caused me pain or some kind of injury.

It seemed Charles's patience had run out because he grabbed my waist, dick still in me, and turned me around so I was lying in bed and he was on top of me. Before I could say anything, he began moving that large cock in and out of me. Kindly hi ome on+233544142683 to be added to his various platforms to enjoy more of this . I was crying out as he slid forcefully into me. I was not sure if I was crying out in discomfort anymore at this point because as he fucked me, I began to feel myself get wetter.He was hitting my G-spot as he entered so it was a mixture of pain and pleasure. He was panting, perspiration all over his face as he moved that mighty cock in and out of my tight cunt. Steadying himself with his palms on the bed, he pushed into me. I spread my legs as wide as they could go, welcoming him. His face was scrunched up in concentration and I was going crazy as he fucked.

In no time at all, all I felt was pure pleasure as my pussy got wetter and wetter around him. He groaned loudly when sliding in and out as if enjoying the extra lubrication too. I wrapped my legs around him, causing me to feel his cock even deeper as he went. I was moaning with my eyes closed as I felt my orgasm building. He slowed down the pace of his thrusts when he noticed I was close to cumming. I was grateful as my pussy squeezed even tighter around him, riding the most intense orgasm I had ever experienced.

He was watching me as I came and when I calmed down, he began to pound into me harder again. I was crying out, moaning his name loudly as he fucked me like a man out of control. I groaned as I dug my nails into his back. He gave a loud, animalistic grunt as he pushed into me one last time and stilled, shooting his cum from his large cock into my cunt.

We spent the night together, and by morning, my pussy was on fire. I felt extreme discomfort each time I walked and I knew I was going to regret this cock for a couple of days. But it was totally worth it. Hmmm A dick of no mercy....

 *The End*

Tell the World: We Are More than Scan-to-BIM

Tell the World: We Are More than Scan-to-BIM - 22/08/2019

Mohsen Kalantari

Building information modelling (BIM) will be a growing opportunity for the surveying and spatial industry, providing we focus more on adding value to BIM and concentrate on what we can offer to other industries thanks to BIM rather than merely preparing it. Opportunities in digital twins, smart buildings, smart infrastructures and smart cities require more than just BIM as data. The surveying and spatial industry will not benefit from this growing market without fully realizing the BIM market opportunity and providing advocacy, leadership and education in BIM.
Scan-to-BIM is promising but even more lies beyond
With the increasing availability of laser scanning technologies, scan-to-BIM has become the major pathway for the surveying and spatial professional to contribute to the digital engineering of buildings and infrastructure. While there is a growing demand for the scan-to-BIM service within the architecture engineering and construction (AEC) industry, it is essential to note that this service – which effectively is a 3D surveying and mapping service – is a small part of the broader BIM economy. Analysis of the various facets of surveying and geospatial market reveals that the growth in surveying and mapping services and survey equipment is marginal. The message from the analysis is clear: the cost of collecting geospatial data will continue to decline and there will be limited growth in services related to surveying and mapping. In contrast, a fast-growing area is GIS and what we can do with the spatial data. We can draw some similarities between BIM and GIS. BIM will be no different to surveying and mapping if we only focus on preparing data and information. If we go beyond modelling building information, however, we can discover a continuum of opportunities.
Adopt the SDI philosophy for buildings and infrastructure
As surveying and spatial professionals, our immediate contribution lies in modelling buildings and infrastructure and this is already being done with considerable success in the AEC industry. However, BIM is about more than merely representing buildings and infrastructure using spatial information; it is also about collaborative data environments (CDEs) and a solution for the fragmented AEC business model. Based on the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) philosophy and our expertise in spatial data management, standards can be adopted in developing CDEs to facilitate the operation of buildings and infrastructure. We have longstanding expertise in generalizing large-scale spatial data to create a small-scale map. BIM provides opportunities to evolve GIS technologies that are focused primarily on outdoor environments into technologies that can be used for indoor spatial analysis. One single building presents all these opportunities for creating BIM, creating CDEs, maintaining and analysing the BIM data and converting it to city models. However, the AEC industry is not yet fully aware of these capacities in the surveying and spatial industry.
Advocate, lead, research and educate in BIM
There are endless opportunities for adding value to BIM and we need to find the niche for the spatial industry. The essential points in the BIM value-add are the need for data integration and information sharing, and for complete digital information about buildings. Our expertise in integrating, sharing and managing spatial information opens a new door and is an opportunity to gain more prominence in AEC. Moreover, we cannot play a more significant role in society and develop business opportunities unless we define and highlight what we can do by advocating BIM to stakeholders of the built environment. Plenty of questions are still unanswered: from integrating BIM with surveying and the spatial coordination of BIM, to translating data between BIM to GIS for our research and development community. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we need to rethink the surveying and spatial engineering curriculum and to upskill the profession. There is an urgent need to update surveying and spatial training and education so that BIM becomes integrated into our knowledge and its prominence is highlighted to our students and the broader profession.

"The AEC industry is not yet fully aware of these capacities in the surveying and spatial industry."

Ordnance Survey Demonstrates BIM Potential with Pioneering Project in Singapore

Ordnance Survey Demonstrates BIM Potential with Pioneering Project in Singapore - 05/12/2019

By combining building information modelling (BIM) with geospatial technologies, Ordnance Survey (OS) is breaking down barriers in Singapore. OS has spent two years in the Southeast-Asian nation championing the use of BIM data and its potential to transform urban planning. Britain’s mapping agency lent its expertise to a project with the University of Singapore and the Singaporean government that aims to make Singapore a world leader in smart technology. OS’s role was to develop data processing and 3D data modelling to help Singapore plan its future city more effectively. It contributed knowledge about the CityGML data model, an exchange compatible with BIM that stores digital 3D models and cities, so that data can be automated.
Limited space
This comes at a vital time for Singapore. The densely populated country, roughly the size of London, has ambitions to grow from 5.5 million to 7 million people. But space is limited. Housing is high rise, with people living in 30 to 40-storey buildings. At the same time Singapore has a height restriction on new developments because of airports at one end of the city.
OS senior technical product manager, James Crawford, said: “There is a real premium on space, and a real premium on space for people. They have got ambitions to grow their population, but they have constraints from their geography, and all the different demands they are trying to manage as a city nation.
“Not just where buildings fit it in, but what it looks like and how. They have a real need for managing construction design and development, because how do you meet those challenges? The investment they have chosen to make is in digital copies of their buildings. This essentially is where BIM models could provide an ongoing resource for them to use.”
Lego for buildings
For the construction industry, using BIM data is a step forward because it pulls together every element of the building process into one place, from each domain, using an exchangeable data format. Historically, for example, design teams, or electrical teams, stored their individual data in different formats and places. Working together in BIM gives a clearer and more rounded vision for everyone involved.
“It’s hard to get your head around the complexity involved in making a building come to life,” said Crawford. “You have many different specialisms across engineering and design each with their own data formats. But with BIM, it is like having Lego for buildings. To a level of detail where even the type of light bulbs, door handle materials can be specified – potentially everything that the construction, planning and engineering teams use to put the building together. It is insanely complex, but BIM gives you a road map for getting there easier. All parties can comprehend it.”

Digital city model

Singapore’s geospatial industry and urban planning departments are responsible for deciding what the city will look like in 20-30 years’ time. Having more data, such as BIM, enables them to plan and design areas with specific groups in mind, such as the young, the elderly, and community groups. Construction can take two or three years, so if urban planners can access information at the earliest stages, preferably before new buildings are built, it affords time to make changes that impact both the building and the outdoors environment.
James said: “Both the urban planning and geospatial teams have access to new information that they didn’t have access to before. They can now improve the depth of analysis they can do, by extracting the information they need from BIM models. For example, if you want to optimise pathways and mobility access between the indoors and outdoors, are the current building plans achieve this result? How do you figure out what and where changes are required? You need connected digital models to do those types of analysis.”
He added that Ordnance Survey had made important steps towards helping Singapore’s construction and geospatial industries, by encouraging the use of Open Geospatial Consortium’s City GML data standard. This was having a galvanizing effect on getting both sectors to collaborate.
James said: “Building trust and relationships between the construction and geospatial industries is paramount. The construction industry knows what is going to be built. The geospatial industry knows about location and context. Consequently, geospatial planners, who plan what the geography of urban areas is going to look like in the future, they have some requirements that can influence what gets built in the first place. There is kind of an iterative circle.”

Removing the technical complexity

OS is working alongside other leaders in the domain, such as the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) programme for Digital Twins to ensure the learnings discovered from the research project in Singapore can be transferred back home. Despite the obvious geographic differences, and the time taken to adopt emerging technologies such as BIM between both nations, Crawford believes a lot of aspects from the project offers value if implemented in the UK context.
He said: “The use cases that were developed, and the requirements for information that planning departments need, is applicable here, because we have urban planning departments in local authorities that are all looking at how to manage space more effectively and so on. The key thing to get across is to remove the technical complexity so people can have a conversation. The world is becoming more complicated at a speedy trajectory that is hard to keep up with.”
“When you have senior decision makers that don’t understand the technical detail, it’s our job to simplify this right down and explain why it is worth investing in technologies that improve collaboration and how beneficial this can be when planning cities in the future.”

How Can Surveyors Optimally Profit from the Digitalization in the Construction Industry?

How Can Surveyors Optimally Profit from the Digitalization in the Construction Industry? - 05/02/2020

How can surveyors optimally profit from the digitalization in the construction industry and the trend towards building information modelling (BIM)? Topcon, a global positioning partner for construction and geospatial businesses, sees BIM as not just a benefit, but a requirement. Here, Cesar Mendoza, the company's product manager for vertical construction, attempts to answer this question. He believes the UK government’s Construction Strategy, published in 2011, serves as a good example and has had a major impact on the uptake of BIM in the UK.
The European construction industry is expanding at a rapid rate and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.4% to reach US$ 2,778.3 billion by 2023. To meet these rising demands, it’s clear that we need to embrace technology, yet many in the industry are still hesitant to invest. While architects and large contractors are adopting new technology with great enthusiasm, such progressive thinking isn’t always replicated among services engineers and small-to-medium-sized contractors.
Despite the major benefits, such as increased productivity, reduced rework and improved data handling, many contractors can be reluctant to advance from the traditional, linear methodology. With hardware costs ranging between €15,000 and €40,000, together with the additional time needed to invest in training employees so they can take full advantage of the technology, it’s understandable why some contractors don’t want to take the risk. This is where surveyors have a big opportunity to profit. By employing a surveyor, contractors are getting both the technology and the experienced skillset of the surveyor. Contractors and surveyors working together is a mutually beneficial relationship; surveyors have great knowledge and understanding of how to run projects and utilize instruments, but don’t always know the different trades, applications and construction requirements – so this is where the contractor’s knowledge comes in. Also, using a surveyor eliminates the time needed for employees to get to grips with the technology. Developing a good relationship with contractors is how surveyors can succeed.
The trend towards BIM is also benefiting surveyors. We’re now seeing BIM as not just a benefit, but a requirement. For example, the UK government’s Construction Strategy, published in 2011, has had a major impact on the uptake of BIM in the UK. This now means that the government requires fully collaborative 3D BIM – with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic – and a minimum of Level 2 BIM is now implemented on all government construction projects. This requirement in the public sector has led to an overall increase in the adoption of BIM processes, with BIM usage levels in the UK now matching those in Singapore, the USA and Scandinavia. Crucially, rather than being a challenge for the industry, this greater adoption of BIM means that the role of surveyors on the construction site is more vital than ever before.
Cesar Mendoza is product manager for vertical construction at Topcon Positioning Group.
Last updated: 11/02/2020