Competition and Future Needs of International Clients

The world is increasingly becoming a single marketplace. To compete well, design and construction firms must better understand international customers and their needs in order to strategically plan to meet those needs. A project conducted by the International Task Force of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) investigated this topic by interviewing a wide range of international client organizations. Interviews were conducted in the Pacific Rim, Europe, South America, The Middle East, and the United States. The objectives of these interviews were to (1) identify significant future needs of the international client; (2) evaluate needs along with the plans/visions of engineering and construction clients to determine trends and expectations of the engineering/construction (E/C) community; and (3) make recommendations to E/C contractors as to how they can better serve clients in the year 2000 and beyond. This paper reports on the findings of this study and the conclusions presented in the CII report entitled “The Future Needs of the Construction Industry's Worldwide Customers.”