A strategic approach to exploiting and implementing BIM, big data analytics, and internet of things (BBI) for competitive advantage in the construction industry

Besides the productivity and profitability hindering, the government of UK admits that the construction industry is lagging behind other industries in terms of fully utilizing digital technology. As an innovative solution to this end, consideration is now being given to exploring the possibilities of improving the utilisation of digital technologies via integrating BIM, Big Data Analytics and Internet of things (together aka BBI )which gives organisations the long awaited competitive advantage. Many studies have provided different levels of insight into the achievement of competitive advantage. However this study pitches organisational level (construction firms) as the unit of analysis and as the level of competitiveness. Given the role played by the construction industry in UK economies; as a GDP contributor, job-creator, shaper of the built environment and resource-consumer, the competitiveness of the construction industry is of interest majorly in to firms. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of organisational size, culture and structures on effective implementation and exploitation of BBI in construction organisations. The study follows a mixed methodological approach which leads to investigate the critical factors that impact on effective implementation and exploitation of BBI for competitive advantage and thereby develop a strategic framework for improved understanding of such critical factors at play. These factors fall in to four main themes inter alia; organisational size, culture, structure and skills-knowledge-training needs. The latter will be demonstrated as a separate skill-knowledge-Inventory (SKI). The philosophical stance is a combination of interpretivist and positivism. The approach holds a mixture of inductive and deductive means in different stages as the study starts from literature review to develop the strategic framework consisting of critical factors. Data collection methods adopted in this study will be semi-structured interviews in pilot study phase and questionnaire surveys in the main study phase. Focus group approach is intended to be employed to validate the framework and SKI.