Construction market forecast for Openreach
Openreach, a BT Group Company, is one of the leading providers of telecommunications infrastructure in the UK. To ensure they closely matched their resources to the expected demand for new services, they needed to understand the size and expected growth trends in eight target markets. They asked Leading Edge to determine how each target market is currently performing in terms of construction output and how this was likely to change up to 2015.
We started by developing a causal model to forecast construction output in each sector, which we then qualified with extensive desk research to provide a five year trend. We then analysed over 5,000 project planning leads to assess the number of new units constructed over that period. By using the output from the construction forecast models, we were able to provide figures that demonstrated the scale of opportunity in new build developments for each market.
We also targeted and achieved telephone interviews with senior executives in 20 of the UK’s top developers within a tight timeframe. The research provided vital insights into the key market trends, barriers to entry and attitudes towards telecommunications infrastructure providers and the services they offer.
David Allan, Commercial Insight & Analysis Manager for Openreach commented, “we will be using Leading Edge’s forecast figures to feed into our business plans for tracking demand and developing relationships with the key developers in our target markets.”