2293 - The Digital Transformation of the Construction Industry with PMWEB's Huw Roberts

0:04Well, hey, Thoughtful Leader. Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. On this show, I interview purpose-driven founders, experts, and change makers who are making a real impact in the world. Want to be a guest? Simple. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click podcast. I'd love to promote your story to our audience of over 100 ,000 and across over 2 ,300 daily episodes and counting. Want to get booked on other great shows like this? Simple. Go to podverified.com and get your free guest authority score. Thousands of hosts are looking for high quality guests and Podverified connects you the right way. Now let's dive into today's episode.

0:58With us right now, it is Hugh Roberts. Hugh, you are the CEO of PMWeb. You are found on the web at pmweb.com. Hugh, it's great to have you. Well, hey, Josh, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and hope we have a great conversation today. Absolutely. Listen, I really love that you're the first Hugh that I've met that spells Hugh, H-U-W, and you were mentioning to me that that's actually Welsh spelling. So very cool. And my last name is Welsh, or at least the family comes from Wales. So it's kind of fun to find that connection. So great to meet you. Hey, Hugh, before we kind of get into your superpowers, you know, I always love finding out what, you know, high level achievers doing their free time for fun.

1:44I don't know what you've been kind of doing for fun lately, hobbies or games or movies, music, anything like that. Anything come to mind? Yeah, so I had lived for about six years in Europe, and I recently came back to the US, and I'm lucky enough to move to Miami. So I have continued my hobby of exploring music and playing guitar. But in Miami, I've now discovered boating. So I'm having fun geeking out, learning how boats work, how to drive, how to fix an engine, how to not sink, all those things. And it's fun. I'm a lifelong learner and having a whole new topic area to explore that's both fun and technical kind of fits my vibe.

2:30What percentage of boat ownership is kind of like hobby work and maintenance and the work of being a boat owner versus like how much are you just tooling around and kind of doing the more traditional recreational side of boating? Well, I need a larger data set to give you a better answer. But I would say for me, it's mostly having fun, right? So and every time you go on the boat, there's something to learn about, you know, some system or some way of navigating or different weather. And so it's fun while learning is the way I look at it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's also like, I love being a good owner of whatever my investment is, you know, and I think especially like, as I've gotten older, you know, just like, okay, if I'm going to have an herb garden, I'm going to do it the right way.

3:21I'm going to learn all the things and, you know, and hopefully thrive. So, well, very cool. Well, you're in a beautiful location. Now you own a boat right now. And then how long have you owned it? And have you, do you go out outside the U.S.? I mean, obviously going to international waters, but do you go down to any of the islands? No, so I'm still exploring. We're lucky that we're on Biscayne Bay, which is a pretty big body of water that's fairly protected. And so we can zoom around here, go around Miami, go up towards Fort Lauderdale and explore. So first boat, first time. I'll leave the across Atlantic transit.

4:04That'll come next. That'll come next. All right. So we'll touch base with you in about a year and see if you've made it to Cape Horn or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Well, Hugh, give us an overview of your work with PMWeb. Yeah, so it's an interesting gig. So I joined the company at the end of last year. So PMWeb's an enterprise software company for owners that manage construction projects and real estate portfolios. So whether that's big banks like JPMorgan Chase or universities, Harvard and Princeton and others, airports, amusement parks, hotel chains, hospitals, really, how do they manage all of their construction and their projects to keep everything on track?

4:53And so my career has been an interesting one. I started as an architect, practiced for about 10 years in that, and then moved to technology. and throughout my career, I've been all about transformation. How can I help the construction industry transform to take advantage of technology to look at its processes, its data, its workflows, and at scale? And so when I came back to the US, I saw PMWeb as a great opportunity to take a really strong product and help it transform and help it grow as a business to add more value to more companies and through growth fuel itself to get better and better. And so far having some pretty good success and fun with it.

5:47Well, I am really interested to find out, you know, what you are seeing this year. So if you were to give us a quick stay to the union for the industries you serve, I suspect, I don't know if AI is a part of this, but what are you observing these days? Well, there's a lot of things, right? So I'll start with the context, right? So the construction industry is, I think many people call it the biggest industry on the planet. There's more jobs, more work, more money in that than anything else. But it's surprisingly undigitized, right? It's much lower tech than you would think, but it's not evenly, you know, that's not true everywhere.

6:31There's a great quote I love from William Gibson, the author, where he says, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. And that applies to the construction industry in spades. There are some companies that are incredibly advanced in their use of technology and others that are still drawing things by hand and managing in spreadsheets. And with that as context, we're in a situation where technology's advancements are accelerating. And AI, as you mentioned, is maybe the best indicator of that. We all think back a year ago to that video of Will Smith or some alien Will Smith eating spaghetti and compare that to where we are today.

7:18And it's not that long. And that's only the visual AI, but that's true in every other aspect. And it's not just about AI. It's about what that has done to businesses' perceptions of the impact of technology. And so that is fueling this kind of second or I don't know what number, but a new wave of the construction industry waking up to the fact that properly digitizing and applying technology to their how they do things and maybe even changing how they do things thanks to technology is happening faster and faster and really needs to be bought into. So there's that demand to leverage technology that's accelerating, but we're in a very interesting kind of macroeconomic climate right now, right?

8:11So we have all these still lingering ripple effects of the pandemic and the impacts on economies that that had and is cycling through supply chains and so forth. And now with the current economic and political conditions, there's a lot of uncertainty. And uncertainty makes businesses stop and think. Yeah. To put it lightly, that's a great way to make some stop and think. Makes them stop and think. And, you know, if you're going to be building a skyscraper in Manhattan, and you're going to spend$5 billion, you want to know what's going to happen in the world before you pull the trigger and get going.

8:56And so there's this kind of, I don't want to say hesitancy, but a thoughtfulness about understanding the risks and directions that the economy and investments are going to go. The flip side of that is that many industries are feeling some of the heat from some of these changes. And if you look at universities, so we serve many of the top universities in the country and others around the world, and they had huge chunks of their revenue and financial capital removed from their system, right? Right. And so they're they're they're trying to figure out how do they still serve their students? How do they still serve their faculty?

9:44How do they properly manage their portfolio of all their buildings and campuses and the construction projects already underway? And so the pressure to get it right and to not waste money and to not waste time just got multiplied. So there's, what's the solution to that? Well, let's bring some technology in and some change in so that you make sure you're getting the most out of your activity and you're minimizing your risk. So there's this kind of this pressure saying, hey, slow down in terms of how you change. But then the other pressure is saying, hey, you have to hurry up. So there's this kind of interesting churn happening in the industry.

10:24So how do you help someone make such big decisions? I mean, is it just based on thousands of data points? And is it analytical at that degree? Or is there also some sort of executive leadership where it's like, listen, it's six one way or half dozen the other. I'm the leader. This is what we're going to do. And it's based on kind of a gut level decision making. And when you answer that, if you could also bring application to SMB founders as well, because I think that this has implication for every leader. Absolutely. And to some extent, in a strange way, all of those issues get magnified for SMB ecosystem because they don't have the buffer to handle a mistake.

11:13right so if you're a small business right and you bet on the wrong thing that could blow that could blow everything up right and and so it you know when when uh you know a big global enterprise you know invests a million dollars in something it's a tiny part of their budget when a small business invests a hundred thousand dollars in something it might be most of their budget or more than their budget and they're borrowing to get it done. And they have to make this life and death, whether or not this, you know, big companies like, well, you know, we're going to have a couple of few sucky quarters and we will rebound.

11:55It's interesting. I would say so through my career in various stages, I have always been focused on this transformative nature of business powered by technology. And I think one kind of truth that I have learned in all sorts of situations here is you will be most successful if you are outcome focused. Don't think about how you're doing something or what you're going to do next. Of course, you have to do that. But fundamentally, you have to really define and understand the desired outcome first. right? So that might be, what is the pain that you are going to solve in your business or for your customer, right?

12:38There's a problem that they have. You've got something in your business or your way of consulting or whatever it is that you do that can help them with that pain. So don't think about and don't focus on what you're going to do to make it happen. Focus on what you're trying to achieve and then work backwards from that. And it might be a pain that you're solving, or it might be opening up an opportunity or a new potential for that customer or business. So, and you have to know which one it is, right? Are you trying to say, hey, you're doing what you're doing, I can add something good on top of that?

13:14Or, hey, you're doing what you're doing, I can take some of your problems away and focus on that outcome. And that'll give you a real clarity so that all the decisions you make along the way as to how you're going to support them and what you're going to do and how they are going to think about what you're working on is always grounded back in that outcome that you're driving to. And so when it's really tough, like now, and when there's all these pressures that are in place, defining that outcome clearly in that context helps everybody make the right decisions and helps you be more confident in what you're doing and lets you evaluate all your choices along the way.

13:55Is this in service of that outcome or is it just another cool thing to do or is it a distraction and maybe not so appropriate? Hugh, are there books that you recommend on this topic that you think are just kind of like, yeah, these are pretty popular books in and around this that you'd say, yeah, I think this is probably a good primer for anyone to read? Yeah, I should have anticipated that question. No, that's all right. I kind of surprised you with that. I should ask another way. What are some, maybe some books or materials that you've gone through historically? Like, you know what? This was helpful in kind of who I am today.

14:39Like maybe something that's guided you directionally that you think is in alignment with what we've been talking about. Yeah, it's funny. So I think over the years, I've done a bunch of different sales training, and I've read a bunch of different business books and attended seminars and talked with coaches. And I find that in a way there are some constant truths throughout them. So I think it's not so much about which book is the right book for me, might be different for other people. It's that as you read and you engage and you listen and you watch great podcasts like this, find those things that resonate with the way you think.

15:19and find the things that kind of reinforce the way you approach and view the world, and then apply them. If I was going to pick one kind of source that, you know, that I did stick with, there's two. One on an outside and kind of dealing with the world kind of point of view. I think Simon Sinek's Golden Circle is a great reference. And basically the idea is lead with the why. What is the why that the customer has and how does it relate to your own why and find the overlap. And that'll be what drives your success together. I'm super simplifying his concept. Yeah. No, thank you. I appreciate that.

16:05PMweb.com is your website. And you've got some resources here. To our friend that's listening, obviously you're producing a lot of thought leadership in and around this. Of course, you know, there's opportunities to engage with you. But let's say someone's interested in our conversation, interested in our topic, and they want more. Like, where would you lead them from here? Yeah, I think the easiest place is, of course, our website is a good place to start. So pmweb.com, you can find out about who our customers are, and there's some good case studies about benefits that they've achieved, obviously what our software solution is.

16:40But more importantly, maybe there's an opportunity to connect to some activities where we're going to be at an event or we're hosting an event or reach out and talk to us and find out what we do that relates to what your interests are. And then I'll say on a personal level, I'm a big believer in people helping each other. So if folks want to connect with any of these thoughts with me personally, as opposed to the company, reach out on LinkedIn. And if you thought one of these ideas resonated with you and you want to talk further, just make a connection. Happy to have a quick conversation or whatever to dive in one-on-one with anybody.

17:25The website, pmweb.com, there's a big kind of brownish gold button up at the top. It says contact us. And of course, you can hover over resources as well to kind of see other ideas. And it looks like you have some events, you know, certainly lots of opportunities to engage. So, well, listen, Hugh, it's been a wonderful conversation. Hugh Roberts, again, your founder, CEO of PMWeb. again found on the web at pmweb.com. Hugh, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks, Josh. It's been a pleasure and I really appreciate the opportunity.

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