Another boom year for collaboration technology
Being the end of the year, it's a good time to reflect on the AEC industry's uptake of collaboration technology tools. Without doubt, '07 has been another big year for online document management. No agreed market size figures exist (something often bemoaned by commentator Paul Wilkinson in his blog) but, along with some others, Aconex has seen continued growth in uptake this year. Importantly, this has consisted of a steady increase in mature markets, rapid growth in emerging markets and early adoption in developing markets.
Mature markets such as the UK, US and Australia continue to lead the way, with the UAE and some of its neighbors close behind. Particularly encouraging this year was the real growth in India and Greater China, massive markets whose economic booms are driving commercial and infrastructure development. We are also seeing the first signs of growth in developing markets such as North Africa and Eastern Europe - several projects are now being managed online in Romania for instance, a country we would hardly have expected to operate in a few years ago.
As these countries move up the ladder in terms of their uptake of collaboration technology, they will contribute growth and breadth to the market over the next 12 months. Despite healthy market growth for some of the key vendors (Aconex has seen its revenue double in each of the past five years), at the moment we are barely scratching the surface. We expect another challenging but exciting year as more of the globally AEC industry comes to regard online document management as an essential tool.
Labels: Global trends
