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?
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Article, written by Peter J. Kienle, FSMPS, CPSM, MBA, first appeared in the December 2021 issue of Marketer journal.
