TECHNOLOGY

Technology—or, more precisely, innovation triggered by technology—is a great thing. Unless you’re on the wrong side of it. Most everyone uses and likes Amazon, but Amazon has hit brick and mortar retailers like an F5 tornado. Uber’s great, but for taxis and livery services it must feel like a high-speed, head-on collision. Wikipedia makes research easy, but when was the last time anybody bought an encyclopedia set? Thanks to Google you can find a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker almost anywhere, but you surely don’t start your search in the yellow pages. And then there’s Facebook, which can give advertisers incredible, targeted, low-cost reach. Never mind all those legacy media companies that are hemorrhaging advertising revenue.

“One of the keys to success is being able to have your clients have as much transparency as possible. This helps with budget, selections and timeframes. With technology for each client everyone is able to see all those items online and anywhere in the world. There are even progress photos, videos and message boards for each client to see the progress while they are away.”

In all of those cases, technology has enabled the delivery of a product or service to be better, faster, and cheaper (or free, in the case of Wikipedia and Google). That’s what technology-driven disruption is all about: better, faster, cheaper. And there’s apparently no stopping the disruption —or destruction—once it has a head of steam. Then there’s the service industry, which hasn’t been much affected, positively or negatively, by technology. That’s not to say it hasn’t been affected at all: Most service buyers start their service search online rather than the newspaper. Almost all service providers have websites, smartphones, and desktop computer systems, and, while still relying on dealers and distributors, they do a lot of product research online. Building product manufacturers are also starting to deliver on the smart technology promise.

All of that is cool, but it’s not disruptive. I predict that in the next 10 years, technology will disrupt a service industry that is struggling to come to grips with labor shortages and housing affordability.

I think most small builders will become similar to car dealers: They’ll sell a product that’s largely produced in a factory by a third-party business. That factory will use robots to assemble components and modules that in turn will be delivered (soon in a driverless truck) to the site. Small crews, perhaps trained and employed by the factory, will quickly tie together the components and the modules.

A Side Note: Phil Donaldson, CFO at Andersen Corp., tells me before long the company will have voice-activated windows that open and close on command, which will mean I won’t have to get up in the middle of night, almost every night, to close the bedroom window because my wife is cold.

 “Technology is here and not going anywhere. As executives we must build technology into our businesses in order to prevail.”

-AUSTIN RICHARDSON

The small builders’ core responsibilities will be limited to land acquisition, sales, and branding. No more, or at least far less, fussing with subs and myriad suppliers. Because the factories will serve many builders, they’ll achieve economies of scale in purchasing products, which will help level the playing field for small builders competing with big builders.

If I’m right, technology will allow small builders to deliver better housing more quickly and less expensively. In other words, housing will be better, faster, and cheaper, which is what technology- driven innovation is all about.

But this innovation in technology is reaching out to all service industries from subcontractors, guided adventures, travel consultants, athletic training, etc. This movement needs a few key people to really get a company off the ground: Marketing, Operations, Business development and of course your developers.