Navigating a changing landscape: How to adapt and innovate to deliver value to clients and partners

All these topics and more were discussed at a recent roundtable hosted by The Business Desk in Manchester, which was attended by Jake Gaskell, our managing director for Rail. Here, Jake addresses some of the event’s common themes and outlines how Survey Solutions is constantly adapting and innovating to keep up with technological advancements and artificial intelligence. He also shares how we ensure our employees have the skills needed to go above and beyond for clients and foster the right environment to bring through the talent of tomorrow.

Utilising AI effectively

A critical focus of the roundtable was how AI and digitalisation are impacting day-to-day activity for businesses and its knock-on effect on client expectations. For us, it has reshaped how we capture, process and deliver data, with clients looking for real-time, cloud-accessible information rather than static reports and drawings. But where some businesses see a challenge, we see opportunity. Indeed, we’re harnessing the power of AI by dovetailing it with the traditional skills and expertise of our teams, and for certain tasks it’s freeing up our surveyors’ time to dedicate more resource into working with our clients directly to find innovative solutions and build stronger relationships. Knowing how to capture data and use it effectively, as with embracing any new software, is only going to take on more importance, too.

Train to gain

That’s why we’re investing in the training and development of our employees to ensure they have the necessary skills and understanding to harness benefits of AI and take advantage of the efficiencies it can help realise. People are a company’s greatest asset, and if an organisation doesn’t have initiatives and programmes in place to help people train, develop and upskill, they will be left behind.

This was a theme of the roundtable which kept cropping up, especially through the lens of striking the right balance between playing down the impact of AI and on the flipside, focusing too much on its influence. Our approach at Survey Solutions is a blended one as we know that keeping pace with technological advancements is key, but at the same time we ensure we never lose sight of the importance of soft skills and great communication. A business can do great work from a technical perspective, but if the relationship and communication on a personal level isn’t there, it can harm future success.

The talent of tomorrow

This feeds into another of the session’s key focus points: skills gaps and businesses being able to find the next generation of professionals who are going to help futureproof their company and the wider industry. Within the construction, engineering and manufacturing sectors where we predominantly operate, firms are finding it hard to recruit young people. It really is the million-dollar question – how are businesses going to ensure a pipeline of talent is coming through over the next decade and beyond?

It’s a key focus of ours, which is why we provide a structured programme over one to two years for those starting out in the industry and invest in apprenticeships. This approach is paying dividends, as a significant proportion of our workforce is made up of people who joined at the beginning of their careers and are still here today. Nurturing talent and providing clear pathways for progression will be key for businesses hoping to attract tomorrow’s employees.

Don’t lose focus on delivery

Despite all the talk around AI, training, and recruitment, everyone acknowledged that delivering value for clients must still be the fundamental focus at the heart of any strategy.

At Survey Solutions we pride ourselves on quality, innovation and providing engineering certainty for our clients. We’re embracing AI and digitalisation, but not at the expense of customer service, the relationships we have with our partners or the development of our team.

Businesses that get this right, and are set up to adapt and innovate to navigate a changing landscape, will be well placed to succeed over the coming years.

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