As marketing manager for a national architecture firm in the late 1980s, I was tasked to work with the firm’s Columbus, OH, partners, who were exploring international markets for our design services. I remember getting RFPs faxed from countries around the world, reviewing them and responding. I don’t believe we had a GO on any one of them.
Forty years later, we live in a much smaller world brought about largely through advances in technology. A recent article from consultants Lodestar Solutions includes a startling comment made by David Schilling: “We are, on average, doubling human knowledge every 13 months and with the internet, on our way to doubling our knowledge every 12 hours.” Try to wrap your brain around that!
With $11.5 trillion in worldwide construction in 2020, only $1.34 trillion, or 12.5%, was spent in the U.S. So, that means $10.16 trillion or 87.5% was spent in other countries. This was an amazing statistic to me, and I’m sure to many other A/E/C marketing professionals, except possibly those in firms doing significant international work. What does it take to be a player in non-U.S. countries, and what are some of the leading countries?
To read more, download the full article.
Article, written by Peter J. Kienle, FSMPS, CPSM, MBA, first appeared in the December 2021 issue of Marketer journal.