As times go by…

Firstly, I would like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. I hope you had time to unwind ahead of what, we are all hoping, will be an exciting and busy 2016.

The first few months in the post as president of the International Association of Concrete Drillers and Sawers (IACDS) have given me a chance to get used to the role and the transition to the new committee, including a whole new team behind the committee, has gone very smoothly and I feel there is a real energy to work hard on behalf of our industry across the world.

As I mentioned in my first column, I am following in the footsteps of my father, Peter, who was president of the association back in 2009.

I think how times have changed – even in the past six years. We have recently started to hold committee meetings via video-conference rather than coming together face-to-face and that’s certainly something that wouldn’t have happened during my father’s time as president.

It made me think how technology has come on so much – especially since my father first started D-Drill close to 50 years ago. He reminds me how, when he first started, he would have to go to the telephone box with coins to arrange jobs and they would write and post letters to confirm everything.

I was born when he was away working so he didn’t find out that I was here for a week after I had arrived!

Technology has (both in the machinery we use and the communications devices we have) improved the way we all work and has driven efficiency to a new level.

But I am not sure this has made life any easier – in fact it’s brought new stress levels in many ways because you feel like you are working 24 hours a day seven days a week. If someone sends an email, they are checking why you haven’t responded within minutes of sending it.

And that can be any time of day or night and especially when we are all working across the world.

I have recently read Richard Branson’s book and he was talking about how scheduled holiday and time off for the top, top executives is almost impossible now and that they continue to work until the task is completed and then they decide for themselves if they can take time off.

I’m not sure I agree with the concept entirely but it does feel as if the advances in communication has moved the world in that direction.

Still, I’m not sure I’d want to go back to a time when I have to make calls from a telephone box in order to arrange jobs – perhaps we could find a happy medium!

As we come into 2016, another big change to our industry over very recent times is the need to diversify, add new services and just go that extra mile for clients. Again, I think that has always been true to a certain degree but I believe it has become much more apparent in recent years.

At D-Drill, we’ve added a whole range of services to our core of diamond drilling and concrete sawing. We added a concrete scanning service and concrete polishing as well as moving into new markets around kerb cutting and road surface preparation.

It’s not always easy to make the transition into the new areas (in one instance I had to invent a new machine!) but the benefits of being able to offer an enhanced or new service to a customer is definitely something that helps you to insulate yourself as a business.

Now I am not saying every company in our industry can or should look to do this but I believe it is definitely something we must all bear in mind as the world becomes more competitive and clients expect more.

It’s something I am sure we will look at further when we meet at the IACDS meeting in BAUMA in Germany in April because I am keen that we share ideas and hopefully, as an industry, we can learn from one another and continue to improve.

I feel that we are all, finally, getting over the world recession that has dominated so many people’s thinking in recent years and that 2016 can be a year that we all start to move forward, think outside the box and drive our industry to a new level.

I look forward to seeing you in Germany and don’t forget to get your Diamond Awards entries in before February 29 (https://www.iacds.org/diamondaward/diamond-award-2016/submit-your-job) so we can help to showcase the part you play in our great industry.