From words to action: why organisations must step up now
At Digital Construction Week on 4 June 2026, industry IM veteran Neill Pawsey will lead a panel discussion on information management, talking about why organisations need to move beyond good intentions and take meaningful action on information management. He and the panel will explore the opportunities created by new IM skills, emerging technologies such as AI, and—crucially—the organisational behaviours needed to unlock their value. Here Neill explains why the change is long overdue.
About every decade or so, another major industry report tells us the same thing: we need to get better at managing information. Yet the sector continues to struggle with cultural change, fragmented processes, and slow technology adoption.
It’s now almost 30 years since Sir John Egan urged the industry to embrace digital tools to eliminate waste and rework. In Rethinking Construction (1998), he said “Redesign should take place on computer, not on the construction site.” The message was clear, but the response was muted.
A decade later in Never Waste a Good Crisis (2009), Andrew Wolstenholme found the same systemic issues—short‑termism, poor integration, and limited strategic leadership. He asked why construction resisted technologies that other complex industries had already adopted. His conclusion: mindset and framing.
Then, in Modernise or Die in 2016, Mark Farmer highlighted a “large‑scale reality gap” in BIM adoption. Despite government leadership, many organisations still lacked the willingness to invest, collaborate, or see the bigger‑picture business case.
We haven’t yet had the defining report of the 2020s, but the pattern is familiar. Everyone agrees information management is essential. Too few organisations act on it.
At DCW, this session will challenge the audience to close that gap between aspiration and action. If we want a better digital built environment, we need organisations to stop admiring the problem and start backing the solution.
The Information Management Initiative, led by nima and backed by the Construction Leadership Council, provides a practical pathway for organisations to build capability, create their vision, and start their change programmes. In a period defined by skills shortages, productivity pressures, and economic uncertainty, the organisations that invest in IM will be the ones that thrive.
Now is the time to innovate, to invest in the right technology, to rethink our processes, and to upskill our people. With the right organisational mindset and a commitment to information management, we can deliver projects faster, more safely, more sustainably, and more profitably.
This is the moment for organisations to step up—supporting change agents such as nima and helping the sector finally deliver on the promise that Egan, Wolstenholme, and Farmer all imagined.
