This article appears in the current issue of Construction Connection.

The recently released Global Construction 2025 report, the third in a series of major global studies of the construction and engineering industry published by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics, provides accurate and reliable forecasts to 2025 for the global construction and engineering industry as well as for key regional and country markets.

Sponsored in part by Oracle, the report estimates the global value of the construction output will increase by 75% between 2012 and 2025, with the U.S. among the top three largest construction markets, despite depressed numbers in the last seven years.

Article written by Melissa Centurio and appeared on the Oracle EPPM Blog.

“The process manufacturing industry is facing an unprecedented challenge: from now until 2035, cumulative worldwide investments of US$38 trillion will be required for drilling, power generation, and other energy projects,” Iain Graham, director of energy and process manufacturing for Oracle’s Primavera, said in a recent webcast. He adds that process manufacturing organizations such as oil and gas, utilities, and chemicals must manage this level of investment in an environment of constrained capital markets, erratic supply and demand, aging infrastructure, heightened regulations, and declining global skills. In the following interview, Graham explains how the right enterprise project portfolio management (EPPM) technology can help the industry meet these imperatives. 

The current political environment facing federal agencies is one of extreme uncertainty. The economic recession is still dragging on the economy, continuing to push the question of recession or depression. As has become the norm, Congress is locked in a bipartisan battle over taxes and spending cuts, leaving agencies stuck in limbo as legislators try to pass a federal budget. This disagreement has recently reached new intensity, resulting in 1.2 million dollars in federal cuts spread across ten years, commonly referred to as the Sequester. These economic woes have made it increasingly likely that when the next round of budgets are due federal government agencies will be under tremendous scrutiny to ensure that scarce tax dollars are spent wisely. This pressure is transferred directly unto the Project Management Office (PMO), which is responsible for monitoring and administering increasingly complex, mission critical, government IT projects. 

This article appears in the current issue of Construction Connection, a new magazine from Oracle.

Whether they are in the power or process industry, owners, operators, and their E&C partners face extraordinary demands in the next 20 years.  The International Energy Agency (IEA) 2012 World Market Report estimates that a cumulative investment of US$37 trillion is need in the world’s energy supply by 2035.¹  Of that investment, US$19 trillion will need to go to oil and gas facilities and infrastructure and US$17 trillion to meet generation, transmission, and distribution needs with the remaining targeted at other energy solutions.

This article appears in the first issue of Construction Connection, a new magazine from Oracle.

Through 2020, the Global Construction Perspectives & Oxford Economics report estimates that over US$97.7 trillion will be spent on construction projects globally. In 2010, the growth within the engineering and construction market was US$7.2 trillion and by 2020, that growth will move up 67% to US$12 trillion.

Is your company prepared to make the most of the emerging opportunities?

To take advantage of emerging opportunities, owners/operators and contractors must assess the business challenges faced in today's global construction market - challenges that for the most part begin with constrained capital.

An industrial, commercial or infrastructure owner must focus on where to spend limited dollars while contractors seek improved ways to differentiate themselves as they compete for business. Capital constraints do not just affect the backlog; they affect the work contractors have in-flight.

Article written by John Chaney, President and Co-Founder, Dexter + Chaney and appeared in the May 2013 issue of Construction Business Owner.

Understand how mobile apps are changing in the construction industry in order to use them effectively.

In the early days of business software, applications were geared toward accomplishing individual tasks. As software evolved, these applications grew in scope. Today, so-called “enterprise” software is used by businesses of all sizes.

Enterprise software is characterized by the combination of features and capabilities into a single system used by people across an organization from accounting to field operations. A benefit of this approach is that information can flow faster and easier between the multiple groups or individuals who need it.

To cover the spectrum of a construction company’s needs, however, enterprise software can, at times, make tasks harder than they need to be. Enter the app. Not just an abbreviation for “application,” the app is a piece of software that is designed to do one thing, do it well and do it easily.

As all C-level executives can attest, the lifeblood of any enterprise is visibility. The link between an unvarnished view across all levels of a business and the decisions that are made at the highest level is not a new concept. While visibility across the project portfolio is an area much explored by The Oracle EPPM Board, there are still significant gaps in the quality of the information reaching senior executives. To understand why, we decided to look at the subject from a number of viewpoints not normally considered.

The findings were controversial: those that run organisations are only getting half the story. To discover why visibility in the project portfolio remains impaired – whether this was due to structural issues; a problem with technology; or an issue whose roots lay elsewhere – The EPPM Board dug deeper, and its analysis settled on the following themes:

An Oracle White Paper

Executive Overview

Communication and collaboration between owners and contractors has been a frustrating, expensive, and ongoing issue in the engineering and construction industry. All the players agree that clear communication is critical to the successful completion of construction projects. Yet, poor communication happens all the time as projects progress to completion. Misunderstandings are commonplace—not only when owner and contractor organizations communicate with each other, but even within those organizations between project team members. 

The purpose of this white paper is to explore how communication and collaboration between owners and contractors can be dramatically improved when all players continually invest in three key areas:

• People
• Processes
• Organization

In addition, this white paper will discuss how mobile devices, such as iPhones and tablet computers, further enhance communication between owners and contractors. Mobile applications represent a fundamental change in the way all project participants can communicate and collaborate by enabling project teams to share information from where th work is being done: the field.

Since the earliest days of business computing, there have been countless changes to the technology solutions available to those in construction. However, three major waves have significantly changed how contractors do business.

Article written by Wayne Caccamo, Sr Director, Product Marketing, Oracle and appears on Oracle's EPPM blog.

It’s Happening, Keep Up or Fall Behind

We are in the midst of a transition to cloud based computing as the primary model for data center workloads. According to “Independent Shipment Analysis, Cisco Systems”, by 2014, over 50% of all workloads will be processed in the cloud; traditional computing will be in the minority. It is projected to reduce overall tech spending by $30B-$39B in 2013, replacing 14% of global on-premise spending in 2020. This transition translates into a cloud computing market growth rate of 37% from 2008 to 2013, from $13B to $55B. According to another source, the total cloud market was $20B in 2011 and is expected to reach $26.4B in 2012, equating to 32% growth year over year. Gartner pegged the expected growth rate between 2011 and 2012 at 37% (from $14.5B to $22.1B).