What is the future of your industry...
Discussion
Personally I'm in the resi property development industry but my observations over the last few years are competition is high and your margins are limited by planning. I can see the consolidation of housebuilders with only a few large companies dominating the industry, where they can use their huge cash reserves and economies of scale to take advantage.
If I had my time again I would probably go into software, margins can be high, replication can be difficult and crucially the economies of scale are very high.
Interested to hear other peoples thoughts!
If I had my time again I would probably go into software, margins can be high, replication can be difficult and crucially the economies of scale are very high.
Interested to hear other peoples thoughts!
I'm in Banking/Finance. Margins have been squeezed since the credit crises and it is fundamentally a lot less profitable a business/industry than it used to be.
10's thousands fewer people work in the industry now and all of the Banks are racing to replace those remaining employees with self serving portals that customers can use - driven by AI.
I would in hindsight not have nailed my colours to a large corporate mast - doesn't give you much scope when all large corps are shedding middle level jobs. Software or tech looks much better now but I'm not sure I would have the aptitude for it.
10's thousands fewer people work in the industry now and all of the Banks are racing to replace those remaining employees with self serving portals that customers can use - driven by AI.
I would in hindsight not have nailed my colours to a large corporate mast - doesn't give you much scope when all large corps are shedding middle level jobs. Software or tech looks much better now but I'm not sure I would have the aptitude for it.
I have a few lines of business, the future is looking like this
Aerial and Satellite installation getting wiped out by streaming
Wifi/Cat6 solutions getting wiped out by Whole home wifi units
CCTV race to the bottom, Arlo,Nest and Ring driven by google and amazon etc cleaning up with a thousand Chinese copies chasing them
Customers are becoming more entitled too. They do not understand that their inability to operate the equipment, or ensuring software is up to date or the damn thing is even plugged in, is not my fault and that they will have to pay a call out if they expect me to drive 100 miles to flick a switch!
Google and Amazon will soon control all domestic electronic devices, there wont be much requirement for us cable monkeys.
Im getting out this year, moving rural(age 56 now, cannot take the physical work so much)maybe back to employment maybe a new business, one that technology or AI is unlikely to replace.
Aerial and Satellite installation getting wiped out by streaming
Wifi/Cat6 solutions getting wiped out by Whole home wifi units
CCTV race to the bottom, Arlo,Nest and Ring driven by google and amazon etc cleaning up with a thousand Chinese copies chasing them
Customers are becoming more entitled too. They do not understand that their inability to operate the equipment, or ensuring software is up to date or the damn thing is even plugged in, is not my fault and that they will have to pay a call out if they expect me to drive 100 miles to flick a switch!
Google and Amazon will soon control all domestic electronic devices, there wont be much requirement for us cable monkeys.
Im getting out this year, moving rural(age 56 now, cannot take the physical work so much)maybe back to employment maybe a new business, one that technology or AI is unlikely to replace.
I wouldn't say software is really much of a game to be in either.
It may look like it, but in reality it's a treadmill where you can never pause for breath or someone else will have duplicated what you did or a change to something (operating systems, networking, whatever) means your product no longer works.
Also being technically brilliant doesn't save you from more marketing-savvy competitors so you could bet the farm on something only to discover that a Silicon Valley Venture Capital backed firm blows you away with a hastily thrown together less functional but slickly marketed clone.
There's every chance the future will belong to a handful of huge conglomerates who are able to access finance and simply outspend any competition.
It may look like it, but in reality it's a treadmill where you can never pause for breath or someone else will have duplicated what you did or a change to something (operating systems, networking, whatever) means your product no longer works.
Also being technically brilliant doesn't save you from more marketing-savvy competitors so you could bet the farm on something only to discover that a Silicon Valley Venture Capital backed firm blows you away with a hastily thrown together less functional but slickly marketed clone.
There's every chance the future will belong to a handful of huge conglomerates who are able to access finance and simply outspend any competition.
Pharmaceuticals (specifically oncology). Drug discovery becoming ever more costly, payers becoming more reluctant to buy medicines that only offer small incremental improvements over standard of care. Massive competition from generics and, given the extended clinical trial timelines, the length of time new products get patent protection is falling
On the plus side, as Western lifestyles and therefore Western diseases become more prevalent in emerging economies there's a massive opportunity for growth into these markets (providing they have the money to pay for the drugs).
The future for the Industry is probably one of increasing costs and flatlining of profits. The age of the blockbuster drug is probably coming to an end. My company used to have blockbusters bringing in $6-8 billion a year, now we'd have 4 or 5 drugs each bringing in $1-2 billion a year, with all the associated costs multiplied.
Big Pharma is slow to adapt and they're cash-rich. There will be plenty of CEOs using their cheque books instead of their brains to try and remedy the situation.
Go and found a biotech start-up. Get something interesting through Phase 1 and then hawk it to one of the big guys for a $billion
On the plus side, as Western lifestyles and therefore Western diseases become more prevalent in emerging economies there's a massive opportunity for growth into these markets (providing they have the money to pay for the drugs).
The future for the Industry is probably one of increasing costs and flatlining of profits. The age of the blockbuster drug is probably coming to an end. My company used to have blockbusters bringing in $6-8 billion a year, now we'd have 4 or 5 drugs each bringing in $1-2 billion a year, with all the associated costs multiplied.
Big Pharma is slow to adapt and they're cash-rich. There will be plenty of CEOs using their cheque books instead of their brains to try and remedy the situation.
Go and found a biotech start-up. Get something interesting through Phase 1 and then hawk it to one of the big guys for a $billion
Kitchen maker
I think I'll probably be ok. Although the vast majority of kitchens are cheaply made in factories there still seem to be a good many people who don't want that. I still have to watch my prices but there does seem to be some appetite for something that's a bit nicer. You can see the same thing with cars etc, plenty of cheap stuff available to but I see lots of BMWs about the place.
I find the majority of my customers have been in their property for a good while, they still have the kitchen that was there when they moved in but now they can afford something decent that suits them, not the previous owners.
I think I'll probably be ok. Although the vast majority of kitchens are cheaply made in factories there still seem to be a good many people who don't want that. I still have to watch my prices but there does seem to be some appetite for something that's a bit nicer. You can see the same thing with cars etc, plenty of cheap stuff available to but I see lots of BMWs about the place.
I find the majority of my customers have been in their property for a good while, they still have the kitchen that was there when they moved in but now they can afford something decent that suits them, not the previous owners.
markcoznottz said:
cologne2792 said:
Window Cleaning: Relatively safe and thinly spread.
Low barriers of entry though, means more people having a go. Much more self employed in general now, can't be good for margins in a lot of trades. The adoption of water fed pole cleaning has meant that the start up costs are much higher than before.
Surviving the Winter is a good indication as many fail at the first sign of cold weather.
Some of my customers I've had for 30 years. Survivability is the key.
Plus there are a near infinite number of properties and always a finite number of window cleaners and not all of us do domestic cleaning.
I know probably a dozen other operatives in our relatively small area - so far there's been no issues with overcrowding, here at least.
Mechanical Engineering- just my thoughts and opinions, welcome to be shot down on them....
Automotive- this is changing, as the whole autonomous car/car ownership model is up for serious discussion. Even Ford US are looking at a whole new business model.
Motor sport – OK for 5-10 years but dying on its arse long term. Grids are falling each year.
Aerospace
Civil – long term – 20+ years I believe this is dying, although all the evidence today points towards increases. This will live and die on battery technology advances. Manufacturers heavily into electrical engine tech now.
Military – probably safe for 20 years, but I don’t think there’s the appetite for major defence programs as there once was. The programs take ages. I was doing nose cone radar enclosures for EFA/Typhoon in 1989. Lots of grads want to design mega new aircraft so lots of competition for jobs, hence average-at-best salaries.
Satellite/comms – big demand all over the south east and has been for 3 years now. I can’t see this tailing off for years.
Marine – personal craft – it’s over - this will live and die on battery technology advances. Commercial shipping– no idea.
O&G – short term – next 5 years, probably very good. Long term? err… who knows? Environmental impact is altering peoples’ perception of this, and maybe in conjunction with the demise of single use plastics -it’s anyone’s guess. It makes our modern lives function so much, it’s going to take ages to wean ourselves off it.
Rail- excellent long-term bet, after decades of dismal salaries, it’s become a lot better.
Reprocessing - Environmental clean up is just getting going. There’s a real taste for it now, that wasn’t here 5 years ago. The TV shots off the oceans awash with plastic, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, was a real eye opener for a lot of people.
Renewables –
Wind - massive demand, but with the “quick buck” approach there used to be to wind power I’m not sure. UK has some of the largest wind farms in the world. In terms of tech, it has become little more than copy and paste. Blades will get a big bigger, towers a bit taller, efficiencies in the generator will get a bit higher, but there’s not much headroom left.
Solar power – is this technology wandering off to China? We have missed the boat here in the UK with this one, unless there’s a UK break-through in materials technology.
Nuclear – nice steady work, but if civil kicks off like it has to, one of the biggest areas of expenditure we’ll probably ever see. Fission or fusion, it doesn’t matter. Very slow work though… Fusion via ITER and Culham. I was at Culham last week, the engineering challenges ahead of them are so big, they really don’t like being questioned on it.
Remote handling/Decommissioning – the big one, the clean up bill for Sellafield, nuclear stations in general as well as the North Sea oil rigs is epic. The more one reads, the bigger one realises the bill is. £77 billion for Sellafield alone as it stands today and climbing…
Automotive- this is changing, as the whole autonomous car/car ownership model is up for serious discussion. Even Ford US are looking at a whole new business model.
Motor sport – OK for 5-10 years but dying on its arse long term. Grids are falling each year.
Aerospace
Civil – long term – 20+ years I believe this is dying, although all the evidence today points towards increases. This will live and die on battery technology advances. Manufacturers heavily into electrical engine tech now.
Military – probably safe for 20 years, but I don’t think there’s the appetite for major defence programs as there once was. The programs take ages. I was doing nose cone radar enclosures for EFA/Typhoon in 1989. Lots of grads want to design mega new aircraft so lots of competition for jobs, hence average-at-best salaries.
Satellite/comms – big demand all over the south east and has been for 3 years now. I can’t see this tailing off for years.
Marine – personal craft – it’s over - this will live and die on battery technology advances. Commercial shipping– no idea.
O&G – short term – next 5 years, probably very good. Long term? err… who knows? Environmental impact is altering peoples’ perception of this, and maybe in conjunction with the demise of single use plastics -it’s anyone’s guess. It makes our modern lives function so much, it’s going to take ages to wean ourselves off it.
Rail- excellent long-term bet, after decades of dismal salaries, it’s become a lot better.
Reprocessing - Environmental clean up is just getting going. There’s a real taste for it now, that wasn’t here 5 years ago. The TV shots off the oceans awash with plastic, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, was a real eye opener for a lot of people.
Renewables –
Wind - massive demand, but with the “quick buck” approach there used to be to wind power I’m not sure. UK has some of the largest wind farms in the world. In terms of tech, it has become little more than copy and paste. Blades will get a big bigger, towers a bit taller, efficiencies in the generator will get a bit higher, but there’s not much headroom left.
Solar power – is this technology wandering off to China? We have missed the boat here in the UK with this one, unless there’s a UK break-through in materials technology.
Nuclear – nice steady work, but if civil kicks off like it has to, one of the biggest areas of expenditure we’ll probably ever see. Fission or fusion, it doesn’t matter. Very slow work though… Fusion via ITER and Culham. I was at Culham last week, the engineering challenges ahead of them are so big, they really don’t like being questioned on it.
Remote handling/Decommissioning – the big one, the clean up bill for Sellafield, nuclear stations in general as well as the North Sea oil rigs is epic. The more one reads, the bigger one realises the bill is. £77 billion for Sellafield alone as it stands today and climbing…
bristolracer said:
I have a few lines of business, the future is looking like this
...
Wifi/Cat6 solutions getting wiped out by Whole home wifi units
....
This is only true in residential, business and public wifi is still growing fast and as the technology moves to wifi-6 (802.11AX) installed systems will be refreshed over the next few years and this will include upgrades to the switch networks and in some cases cabling as well....
Wifi/Cat6 solutions getting wiped out by Whole home wifi units
....
I'm in networking and there is a lot of change on a horizon, the days of network engineers configuring stuff manually are numbered, scripting and APIs are the future with increasing levels of self-learning and automation reducing the need for expensive networking staff. Those with scripting and API programming skills will be increasingly in demand while "CLI jockeys" will die out.
I think many administrative tasks are going to die out and this includes a lot of "skilled" but repetitive functions such reviewing contracts or any form of accounting, those with a creative bias will be in demand along with anyone that can handle complex manual tasks by which I mean stuff that can't easily be automated.
The rate of change is accelerating so whatever we know as normal now will be very different in ten-plus years, and don't look to the past to try and predict the future. I think for many that are starting out on their carriers now are in for an interesting ride as things are going to change significantly over the next 40 years.
We manufacture equipment that protects and saves lives. As we don't make luxury products, I can see a lot of longevity in what we do. We get a lot of business from the fire and rescue services, hospitals, MOD, etc.
The market share is there, we know our competitors and have been going for a long time. We're global so can ride out regional issues. We're not the cheapest out there but have a reputation for quality. I can see changes like more production moving to the Czech Republic and the China manufacturing sites. We've already lost a few lines and I can only see that going one way as with a lot of manufacturing in the UK in the years ahead. The company as a whole should be fine.
The market share is there, we know our competitors and have been going for a long time. We're global so can ride out regional issues. We're not the cheapest out there but have a reputation for quality. I can see changes like more production moving to the Czech Republic and the China manufacturing sites. We've already lost a few lines and I can only see that going one way as with a lot of manufacturing in the UK in the years ahead. The company as a whole should be fine.
Power stations, bit of O&G, gas storage caverns and decommissioning of all said.
Big Sellafield bill will always be. Needed to keep West Cumbria alive. Projects run elsewhere for Sellafield will wind down (4-500 coming off jobs in the NW in the next year).
Dounreay and Magnox estates are in the £77 billion for Sellafield as well, which over the future years only orks out a couple of billion per annum. (As opposed to the £600 million over a few weeks for holiday repatriations).
Decommissioning conventional stations. Not much work, we go in and look at the assets see if they are worth keeping for strategic spares (mainly big turbine sets from coal plant to keep the EdF AGR Nuclear reactors going). Going to get a lot less work very soon as all kit is worn out and the OEMs are out the game.
Just been in a company that has just been bought and the "wrong" place for redundancy - i.e. too much to pay me off to go to make up for my loss of [final salary] pension by going early, but expensive to pay out my last few years as a staffy. Seems in power generation a "get rid of the knowledge and we will deal with it later" attitude at the moment. Hence the Sellafield bills as no one remembers why things were done the way they were.
So I'm out nuclear contracting at the mo (IR35 has had a big hit as the money comes from the gubberment) and am doing a brief gig for the Irish Sea for the gas rigs off Barrow. Wages have risen here as Barrow is, well a shartehole.
Probably a good 5 years in UK O&G still at good rates to come but O&G North Sea Decommissioning will see a rates race to the bottom faster than the SNP's bowels opening wondering where the oil tax has gone.
Big Sellafield bill will always be. Needed to keep West Cumbria alive. Projects run elsewhere for Sellafield will wind down (4-500 coming off jobs in the NW in the next year).
Dounreay and Magnox estates are in the £77 billion for Sellafield as well, which over the future years only orks out a couple of billion per annum. (As opposed to the £600 million over a few weeks for holiday repatriations).
Decommissioning conventional stations. Not much work, we go in and look at the assets see if they are worth keeping for strategic spares (mainly big turbine sets from coal plant to keep the EdF AGR Nuclear reactors going). Going to get a lot less work very soon as all kit is worn out and the OEMs are out the game.
Just been in a company that has just been bought and the "wrong" place for redundancy - i.e. too much to pay me off to go to make up for my loss of [final salary] pension by going early, but expensive to pay out my last few years as a staffy. Seems in power generation a "get rid of the knowledge and we will deal with it later" attitude at the moment. Hence the Sellafield bills as no one remembers why things were done the way they were.
So I'm out nuclear contracting at the mo (IR35 has had a big hit as the money comes from the gubberment) and am doing a brief gig for the Irish Sea for the gas rigs off Barrow. Wages have risen here as Barrow is, well a shartehole.
Probably a good 5 years in UK O&G still at good rates to come but O&G North Sea Decommissioning will see a rates race to the bottom faster than the SNP's bowels opening wondering where the oil tax has gone.
I work in IT as a solution architect for HR technology. Not the most sexy of industries, but almost all companies have some form of HR and payroll systems. The current trend is moving from on-premise hosted solution to cloud-based SaaS offerings. Most companies have a hotchpotch of on-prem and cloud systems doing various tasks meaning they are looking to simplify their landscape, reduce costs and remove complexity.
What does the future hold? There is plenty of innovation as vendors try to out do each other. SaaS products are cheap and easy to buy, which is a double edged sword, as they still need to be integrated if you want to avoid inefficient processes like dual-keying of data and generate meaningful analytics. Most companies have a conflict between HR and IT strategies, meaning that despite spending a lot of money revamping their estate, over times things will diverge from their chosen strategy and they will need to perform another complete HR technology transformation, cue me, and on it goes.
What does the future hold? There is plenty of innovation as vendors try to out do each other. SaaS products are cheap and easy to buy, which is a double edged sword, as they still need to be integrated if you want to avoid inefficient processes like dual-keying of data and generate meaningful analytics. Most companies have a conflict between HR and IT strategies, meaning that despite spending a lot of money revamping their estate, over times things will diverge from their chosen strategy and they will need to perform another complete HR technology transformation, cue me, and on it goes.
CzechItOut said:
I work in IT as a solution architect for HR technology. Not the most sexy of industries, but almost all companies have some form of HR and payroll systems. The current trend is moving from on-premise hosted solution to cloud-based SaaS offerings. Most companies have a hotchpotch of on-prem and cloud systems doing various tasks meaning they are looking to simplify their landscape, reduce costs and remove complexity.
What does the future hold? There is plenty of innovation as vendors try to out do each other. SaaS products are cheap and easy to buy, which is a double edged sword, as they still need to be integrated if you want to avoid inefficient processes like dual-keying of data and generate meaningful analytics. Most companies have a conflict between HR and IT strategies, meaning that despite spending a lot of money revamping their estate, over times things will diverge from their chosen strategy and they will need to perform another complete HR technology transformation, cue me, and on it goes.
Blimey, I was doing SaaS implementations onto Workday 6 years ago, that's one heck of a slow trend!What does the future hold? There is plenty of innovation as vendors try to out do each other. SaaS products are cheap and easy to buy, which is a double edged sword, as they still need to be integrated if you want to avoid inefficient processes like dual-keying of data and generate meaningful analytics. Most companies have a conflict between HR and IT strategies, meaning that despite spending a lot of money revamping their estate, over times things will diverge from their chosen strategy and they will need to perform another complete HR technology transformation, cue me, and on it goes.
Electrician here.
But if a double edged sword. We get busier as the world develop electric cars and push away from fossil fuels, yet at the same time batteries and wireless charging will ultimately do away with cabling (to a degree)
Luckily I do fire alarms which is solid as hell, well all the while insurance dictates a building needs one then I'm safe for however long.
But if a double edged sword. We get busier as the world develop electric cars and push away from fossil fuels, yet at the same time batteries and wireless charging will ultimately do away with cabling (to a degree)
Luckily I do fire alarms which is solid as hell, well all the while insurance dictates a building needs one then I'm safe for however long.
eCommerce. Mostly "luxury" tech. First to go when budgets are cut, however you can't just pop to Currys to buy most of what we sell, we have a great offer with extended warranties and excellent tech support. It's a pretty tough market but we're pretty good at this side of it.
However the more mainstream things like Smart Home devices we try to sell are near impossible, doesn't matter how much more we know than the big box competitors price wins and they seem to be able to sell stuff for next to nothing, the brands often undercut the retailers too which doesn't help. A lot of brands are also hell bent on getting on the top big box retailers shelves despite the fact they know their customers won't get the tech support they need
. We often can't even buy it for what they sell it let alone market it and support it so it's hard to justify product testing and time on learning everything when sales simply don't support it. It's pretty common to see a 10% from RRP trade buy price yet big box stores will be selling it for 20-30% off.
More and more companies are moving to eCommerce as the high street dwindles, however I think a lot of businesses, even established offline ones will struggle now as the competition is high online and whilst the barrier to entry for eCommerce is technically quite low to physically start trading I think the barrier to entry of actually being able to market and sell products is getting higher and higher. People may be able to start easily but they'll need massive budgets to buy correctly and market adequately.
Personally I think eCommerce will go more entertainment-commerce with sites that provide significant value through content, blogs, videos etc. etc. will win out by building huge organic audiences with longer customer life time values, higher trust and more raving fans. Branding and understanding your audience is key.
However the more mainstream things like Smart Home devices we try to sell are near impossible, doesn't matter how much more we know than the big box competitors price wins and they seem to be able to sell stuff for next to nothing, the brands often undercut the retailers too which doesn't help. A lot of brands are also hell bent on getting on the top big box retailers shelves despite the fact they know their customers won't get the tech support they need
. We often can't even buy it for what they sell it let alone market it and support it so it's hard to justify product testing and time on learning everything when sales simply don't support it. It's pretty common to see a 10% from RRP trade buy price yet big box stores will be selling it for 20-30% off.More and more companies are moving to eCommerce as the high street dwindles, however I think a lot of businesses, even established offline ones will struggle now as the competition is high online and whilst the barrier to entry for eCommerce is technically quite low to physically start trading I think the barrier to entry of actually being able to market and sell products is getting higher and higher. People may be able to start easily but they'll need massive budgets to buy correctly and market adequately.
Personally I think eCommerce will go more entertainment-commerce with sites that provide significant value through content, blogs, videos etc. etc. will win out by building huge organic audiences with longer customer life time values, higher trust and more raving fans. Branding and understanding your audience is key.
Edited by MrSparks on Monday 23 September 23:23
Large parts being automated away. Other parts being replaced by data analytics, leaving a small decision making core.
I've spoken to a bunch of organisations who all confirm this trend. Within ten years the role will be completely gone and radically changed within five.
I just can't convince my boss to do anything about it. We are the first to notice in our sector and we could see this off if we change direction. I have even proposed a direction! Time for me to think about a shift to one of our competitors to help them survive...
I've spoken to a bunch of organisations who all confirm this trend. Within ten years the role will be completely gone and radically changed within five.
I just can't convince my boss to do anything about it. We are the first to notice in our sector and we could see this off if we change direction. I have even proposed a direction! Time for me to think about a shift to one of our competitors to help them survive...
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