AEC Inspire 2026 Podcast
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Podcast
AEC Inspire 2026 Podcast
Episode Description
Lucas Hayden and Akshay Mahajan unpack the 2026 AEC Inspire Report, exploring what it takes for architecture, engineering, and construction firms to succeed in an era of rapid change. They discuss the industry's most persistent challenges, from talent shortages and forecasting to go/no-go discipline, along with the emerging opportunities and risks associated with AI. The conversation highlights why strong data foundations and a strategic approach to AI adoption are critical for long-term success. Tune in for practical insights on transforming AI from an efficiency tool into a driver of effectiveness, making smarter pursuit decisions, and building more resilient, future-ready AEC businesses.
0:05
Lucas:All right. Well, welcome everybody. We're so glad to be with you. Um, we are really excited to launch our 2026 AEC Inspire report. And before we jump into the report, would love to just do some introductions. Today I'm joined by Akshay Mahajan. Akshay is the EVP of our AEC business here at Unanet. And Akshay, why don't you go ahead and, uh, introduce yourself as we get started?
0:30
Akshay:Hey, everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Don't know when you guys are gonna be listening to this, but, uh, I'm coming here live from, uh, Tempe, Arizona. Sunny Tempe, Arizona today. Uh, good to be, uh, talking to you about this. I'm Akshay Mahajan, as Lucas mentioned. I'm Executive Vice President of AEC business, uh, here at Unanet.
Been, with, uh, the AEC industry associated now for, um, seven and a half years. Wow. That it's been a long time. Uh, I spend my time, uh, talking to, uh, our AEC customers, the AEC community, and learning about their business. , I'm excited to share, uh, what we have learned from the AEC Inspire, uh, in this last round.
1:18
Lucas:Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, just, I guess by way of introduction for me too, um, I get to be Akshay's partner in crime on lots of different things. I spend my time with, uh, customers and, uh, helping coordinate internal teams. Uh, I've been working with Unanet for about 15 years, uh, in the AEC space, and it's honestly been a joy to work, uh, Akshay, as you know, with the firms that we get to work with day in and day out.
And, you know, that's the whole point behind the Inspire report, is to reflect back some of the inspiration that this industry gives us. And so without further ado, here is this year's report. So we are, um... we were very, uh, attuned to the idea of the change, uh, the, the changing times in which we live.
And so we wanted to title the report this year, Akshay something that kind of captured that. And, you know, with the, the onset of AI capabilities and a lot of changing, uh, kind of in the macroeconomics of the industry, w- we knew that we wanted to focus on change, but it wasn't until the probably, like, the, the past few weeks that we really landed on this winning at the speed of change.
2:39
Akshay:Mm.
2:40
Lucas:You know, we felt it was so important, um, not just to recognize the times in which, you know, we find ourselves, but, you know, how can we take advantage of the opportunity that, uh, you know, sits before us as an industry?
2:55
Akshay:Yeah. Um, as we dive into this year, I do wanna remember this is our fifth edition, Lucas.
Uh, we started on this journey five years ago, and it's been a humbling experience because as you get to interview, survey, um, AEC executives and AEC companies, um, you always get to get a perspective of what's going on in the industry. Uh, even if, you know, you and me spend so much time with our customers, it's always-- I always get to find out things, whether they get summarized in a manner or they get bubbled up in the manner that, uh, helps, uh, in that manner.
So- Yeah ... excited to talk about this. And I think the change is the underscore in there. I think we, as a Technology is driving a once in a lifetime generational change. Yeah. And that change, the speed at which it is coming at us is unprecedented. We have gone through multiple changes in my lifetime. I've seen the revolution of dotcom coming in.
I've seen the revolution of going from an on-prem system to a SaaS system. They all took 5, 10 years over a period of time to actually become real changes. But this time, this change that AI is dropping at us, this is coming at a speed that is not... cannot be counted in years, that cannot be counted even sometimes in, in quarters.
You know, you're talking about months and days nowadays. And so we all need to find new, uh, new ways to embrace this change, because if we don't, then the speed that it's coming us, it's gonna run us over if we don't get ready for it.
4:47
Lucas:Yeah, that... I mean, that's exactly right. And, you know, these, these... in the subtext here, strategy, resilience, and transformation I feel like are so important because when we think about kind of our s- our strategy, if I put myself in the shoes of a, of an AEC business, being able to widen the aperture of strategy and the horizon on that strategy, both to be able to handle the things in a tight three, six-month window, but also try to keep that longer view in mind.
And to me, it's those kinds of moves now that will help our, our firms be more resilient. And, and to do that, you ha- I mean, now more than ever, you have to be open to taking a transformative posture with the business. So let's talk just for a minute about, uh, who participated in this year's, uh, survey. So we had a great representation of the industry.
Um, right up about 300, people participated in the survey. And, uh, Akshay, we had a nice split between ar- pure architecture, um, engineering, and construction, just about a third each. Good. Uh, probably some multi-discipline in there, uh, a- as well, which is great. And then the other thing and, and importantly, uh, we had a pretty good representation of, uh, employee size, so total, uh, FTEs.
Uh, most representation came from SMB, upper SMB midmarket. Uh, we also did have some representation from, uh, kind of the enterprise space, up above 1,000 and even some up above, uh, 5,000. Uh, which was, uh, which was great to see people come out from all areas, uh, of the industry. So for today, I really wanted to kind of live in this space.
And what you're seeing, by the way, this is the actual report, this is what you'll, you'll get when you, uh, when you go and download the report. Um, but this is our summary by the numbers. And Akshay, as I thought about this summary and as I kinda looked at the data, I feel like there are two major, uh, themes happening here in this summary.
One is what I would call evergreen, the things that we kind of always tend to deal with as an industry. And then some other things that I would classify as emerging. So these are new challenges, um, that kind of thing. And why don't we start with a few of the evergreen, uh, topics? So the ones that I kind of look at and, and say, "Oh yeah, this is, this has been a challenge for a while," it's talent acquisition and retention, it's low adoption of tools it's forecasting.
And when I think about that first one, uh, talent acquisition and retention... In fact, I was talking, uh, with our, our executive team yesterday about this. I'm, I'm seeing this particular one mostly in the engineering space-
8:09
Akshay:Yep ...
8:10
Lucas:uh, where people are really just starved for talent. What... A- any color you wanna add there?
8:15
Akshay:I think, Lucas, it's, uh, engineering firms always come out as when, as like the somebody who's actually caring about it the most. Then you had this about engineering firms start there.
0:05
Lucas:
That's right. Yeah. Um, okay, so, we, uh, talking about this, that. So when I think about talent and, uh, acqui- talent acquisition and retention, I feel like the industry that's impacted most, or the sector that's impacted most here is with engineering firms. Um, everybody I talk to in engineering, this is always the thing that comes up, is the ability to know that they're gonna be able to staff the projects that they're going after.
Akshay, what's been your experience there?
9:04
Akshay:For sure, Lucas. There is always, from percentage perspective, um, a lot more concern, a lot more need around that. The other area that I constantly hear from, uh, especially the construction companies, is around trade. You know, in our country, one of our biggest issue is that we don't produce enough people who go to school or who get trained on these trades.
And, you know, think about what's happening in the market with data centers and, you know, new communities that are getting built. Uh, the need for trade, uh, is, has only gotten doubled or tripled in the last, uh, couple of, uh, years now, and we are not able to keep up with that demand. So trade is another area where there is a huge amount of demand and a need that, you know, we, we still are lacking the, the right talent and the right number of people to meet the demand that is in front of us.
And what that actually translate to a lot of people is that it kind of limits the growth. Right. Whether you are an op ed firm, engineering firm, a construction firm, you know, your growth is limited by the people you can get onboarded, and that is a constant thing that I hear from all our customers.
They're like, "I have enough work that I can get a growth rates of 30, 40, 50, but I can't practically do it. I have to be limited by the people I can get onboarded on it," which- is, is always fascinating. As you said, it's always evergreen, but that's always the truth of our industry
10:44
Lucas:Yeah. Well, and the interesting thing with that is that makes me think about this, this other challenge that showed up in, in project management and in finance and accounting for the past several years, which is forecasting.
The ability to look forward, to be able to see this is my committed backlog, my, my project backlog, this is my soft backlog, my, my pipeline, and be able to kind of get to the nexus of what that's going to mean for hiring. And as, as firms try to navigate, especially this year and, and certainly I'm sure next year, with all that's changing around us, the ability to confidently see a few, six, nine, 12 months ahead is gonna be so important.
11:34
Akshay:A- absolutely, Lucas. And, you know, not just knowing the total, but even knowing what kind of work, right? Yeah. You know, with, with the diversity of the work and with the continued push from the leaders saying we need to be more diverse, uh, and, and the strategic plans that a lot have laid out where they're trying to push into a certain part of geography or the kind of work, it also creates additional challenges because you can't be predictable or you can't be doing the same kind of work that you've done before.
And hence your forecasting even becomes more important because now you need to know, do I need, um, electrical trade more in Las Vegas because I'm gonna get more projects there? Or do I need, uh, structural engineers that can handle, uh, you know, big projects like, uh, NFL stadiums? So it's a, it's a very interesting mix, uh, that the forecasting can help you provide.
12:31
Lucas:Yeah. Yeah, and, uh, to your point about it's, it's more than just the total, um, it, it also makes me reflect on not only the ability to forecast, but to be able to model scenarios. Yep. You know, if, if we, um, tool up in this area, what will that do to our overall, forecast and so on and so forth.
And, you know, when we talk about the Inspire Report, Akshay, we, we try to wanna... we try to tend to talk more about the industry, less about, um, tools and, and software and things like that. Um, but I would be remiss if I didn't point this out in the business development space is there is a prevailing and kind of evergreen sense that tools, people have challenges adopting the tools that they, they have before them to really accelerate in this area.
Um, what h- from your perspective, what are a few strategies firms can think about, um, when it comes to adopting, particularly business development, uh, tools and capabilities?
13:38
Akshay:That's a really good question, Lucas. I think- In, in order to answer that question, every firm should answer the question why people are not adopting the tools.
The assumption this is making is that tools are available to people and they're not adopting it, right? I mean, just think about it, right? You, you have a way to do it, but people still don't do it. And I think the, the most of the time, the why actually doesn't come from the people. I think it comes from the culture and the How business development is perceived in the AEC firms.
There are, there are teams who think about that as a metric that is measured at an executive level, and there are companies who don't think about it, uh, as a KPI on that. And there is a direct correlation to that, right? When you're gonna be measuring it at an executive level as a metrics, then you're gonna see that people will want to adopt more of the tools.
But if you're not even measuring about it, if you don't even talk about it in a regular manner, then there's less adoption around it. So my advice on the strategy is take one aspect of the BD and make that KPI at your board level, at your executive level, that you are constantly talking about it. Because in many ways, BD is a leading indicator.
Projects are your lagging indicators, right? And so if you wanna get better at planning and doing that, you have to start with these leading indicators. And as an industry, we are not good at doing that. So that would be the number one strategy to adopt, uh, in my opinion.
15:26
Lucas:Yeah. I think that's a, a great word and a good transition too, because one of the things that we, uh, un- uncovered this year is what I've been calling our yes, buts.
And, you know, these are things where we see some positive, uh, leading indicators, but we see some challenges in some of the, um, in some of the counterbalances there. And so our first one is, as everyone can see on the screen here, yes, 92%, almost everybody who participated, has some kind of formal go, no-go in place.
And so this, this speaks directly to our, uh, business development challenges. However, only 47%, so less than half, have an actual formal and standardized, uh, go, no-go. And you know, Akshay, the thing that comes to my mind here is like you said the culture and measuring what matters and, and the metrics.
The other thing that, um, comes to mind for me is the change management, the ability to push adoption and change and a formalized, in this case go, no-go into the business and, and what's the, what's the aptitude for doing that?
16:43
Akshay:Yeah, Lucas. Go, no-go is a very interesting proxy for the same conversation we were having before, right?
16:51
Lucas:Yeah.
16:52
Akshay:Um, and if you, if you think about it in a second, like this... I read this multiple times because- Which is 92% say they have a process, but only 47% say they have formal criteria. So I'm like, I'm trying to like think about that and rationalize. So what that means is people are saying they have a process, but they don't have a formalized criteria.
17:18
Lucas:Yeah.
17:19
Akshay:That means they're just doing a check mark in my opinion most of the time. They're not sitting down and, and genuinely doing it, and it actually works for a lot of firms, and that's why they've been able to do it for a long time because it's about few people, it's about your gut instinct. It's about what you wanna do, and you kind of like say that I have a process, but you don't sit down and write your criteria, right?
And I think it works well when you're not growing, when you're not bringing more people into your company, when it is on in your than five more people's heads in the whole company. But if you really want to impact this change, you have to, as an exec, think about that it shouldn't just be sitting in my head.
It should be transmitted to more and more people, so more and more people are thinking about that, and I think that's, that's a very interesting dynamics around this process being a proxy towards just making sure that you are not just keeping it to the few, but letting that be becoming a more mainstream so that people can understand that.
And we all know this. People are smart. Once they understand it, they actually start behaving in a different way over a period of time because they know what matters.
18:30
Lucas:Yeah. You said a moment ago, um, taking it from kind of the ownership of the few to, to the many, and this next, uh, yes, but I feel like follows that same theme.
So over the past 12 months in the AEC space, we saw AI, uh, adoption, AI curiosity grow, um, from somewhere in the 50 percentile all the way to 75%. Oh, wow. And we took... The survey was done in, uh, January of this year, and so I, I suspect that number has continued to grow. Um, however- Though most people are using AI in some way, shape, or form within their business, only 30% feel, or 29% feel confident in the data that they're feeding that AI.
And the reason I bring up the idea of the few to the many is because I know in my experience, um, and you I'm sure have a perspective on this as well, but when it comes to business systems, data management- Yeah ... uh, data health within an AEC organization, that has mostly been delegated to a few people in the business.
Oh. Oh. It might be someone, you know, uh, a CTO or somebody in the IT kind of stack. Um, it's always really kind of, um, isolated to a few experts within the firm- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... like I'm the expert of this system, I'm the expert of that system. And I feel like the shift that needs to start happening is those experts start to start needing...
They need to kind of be democratized in, in that way. Oh. Um, because as we start to leverage AI more, the foundation starts to matter at exponential, uh, at an exponential pace. Um, w- would love to hear your thoughts on some of that as well.
20:39
Akshay:No
That's a very interesting perspective. Um, you use the word experts, and the one thing that I'm noticing is that we are in this... If you look back six, nine months ago Nobody was sure what this AI is gonna be and how this is gonna actually impact, right? They knew that something was coming and something is happening, but the translation to how does it impact me didn't exist.
I say that in a manner that it actually exists today. It, it doesn't exist today as well. There's a little bit more clarity towards that, right?
21:22
Lucas:Yeah.
21:23
Akshay:And so I think what has happened, Lucas, is in this last, I would call it the last three months, I've seen a shift from experts to early adopters.
21:32
Lucas:Mm-hmm.
21:33
Akshay:The early adopters are the ones that in their own personal life have started using AI for the last six months. Yeah. And these early adopters have seen the power of what it can do for them. And sometimes... I was talking to one exec, they were telling me how their kid who's in high school was actually telling them on how they are using in the high school, right?
And this person who's running this firm is learning from the high school kid about the AI and how it has transformed their life. And I think as more and more of that is happening, as more and more it is getting prevailed in our personal lives, as we're hearing these kind of stories from people like, you know, younger generation and the kids who've, who are now embedding this in their everyday aspect of it, I think we are sh- seeing the shift go from experts to those early adopters, right?
22:28
Lucas:Yeah.
22:30
Akshay:Yeah. And the another thing very interesting, Lucas, is that earlier these early adopters were very predictable, which is, you know, you had a, you had a demographic of those people. I'll tell you something very interesting. I've seen some early adopters now- Mm ... that you would not think from a demographic perspective they will be the early adopters.
22:49
Lucas:Right.
22:50
Akshay:Right. Some of these people are, you know, close to retirement kind of people. Yeah. And so it's a very, very interesting dynamics around it, which is, what I would say to you is if you as a, anybody, doesn't matter executive, non-executive, doesn't matter AEC, non-AEC- Yeah ... I think the one thing that everybody has to embrace is that you all have to get exposed to what AI potential can be.
And one tip I will give to everybody listening in is, if you've not already done that, think about a thing that you can do in your personal life with it. You know? I, we moved recently from one city to another city, and I'll tell you, I used it for that move, and I used Claude to help me plan- organizes and, and put tasks out there to movers and even internally the list.
And I cannot tell you that as I went through the process of doing that, it actually, number one, helped me a lot, right? Number two, I got a, I got an understanding of what it could mean to use it. And out of that, what I realized and learned is that if I just think about this as an automation, I have a problem.
AI is not just about automation. AI is about rethinking in terms of how you do anything. And I think that realization, as it clicks you, that is when the switch starts changing, and we all need to be in the journey. And people in your firm who have already have that switch, take that and explain that to other people on how automation is different than doing something in a very different way.
24:36
Lucas:Yeah. Yeah, and I, I, I love that example that you shared because it, it takes that aha moment to say- ... "Oh, wow, I, I, this, this allows me to reimagine so many different things." Yeah. Um, one, one piece of advice I would give to firms, uh, in the AI space, and it's based on something you said, Akshay, because, uh, as, as people read, uh, further into the report, you'll see that most AEC firms want to use AI to amplify existing staff.
So how can they be more efficient, yes. But more importantly, how can they be more effective, um, in the work that they already do? And, um, when I think about that, AI being an amplifier it, it takes that first aha moment, and then from there you can really do some neat stuff. And the one thing I would say to firms, uh, I've seen it again and again, is to set up a small AI panel or AI task force or whatever you wanna call it, with a mix of people who are in that early adopter category, and just allow them to ideate and to explore ways that AI can help benefit the people, uh, and the processes within the business.
25:59
Akshay:Agreed with you. I think, Lucas, we... and, and I'll just take that thread one more step forward.
26:05
Lucas:Yeah.
26:10
Akshay:AI is just technology. We as leaders Our job is to help drive our individual firms to the next, next frontier that, that we as a company are driving towards, right?
26:29
Lucas:Yeah. Yeah.
26:30
Akshay:And, and technology is an enabler to help around with that, right? So I think just making that connection of not using the AI for the sake of using the AI and talking about it, and making that connection in every of your firm saying, "I want to...
You have a strategic goal. I want to do X by Y." Right? Yeah. And then, then I would say finish that sentence by saying, "This is a very lofty goal." Most of the time if you're doing it right, you're creating a BHAG, you're creating something that is very audacious in front of you, and people get overwhelmed with that and saying, "How are we gonna achieve that?"
That's where you can complete the sentence by saying, "Yeah, we're gonna be using and doing this, and this, and help using AI to help us with that." Now you're making the connection to your strategic growth goals, to how this can enable you. And then as you go through that process, you need to be able to be curious and allow people to do that.
Like I've started doing this recently because in my own, uh, offi- you know, uh, in, in, in our work I get- Yeah ... get to meet a lot of customers, a lot of prospects. I'm, I'm here in Arizona. We're meeting a, a large, uh, construction company here today, and, uh, I prepare for these meetings. Yeah. And most of the time in my past, the way I would prepare for the meeting is we would have a prep meeting where people who are coming together will come all together and I would ask questions and say, "Tell me about this firm," and, you know, "Who are we meeting?
What are we needing to do?" And so we would do that in an organic manner, and typically you would do three or four of those kind of meetings before you go and meet somebody.
28:08
Lucas:Yeah.
28:09
Akshay:Now, we have changed that whole thing by saying we're only gonna do one of that meeting, and everything else has to happen using AI and telling me the kind of question that I was asking on those calls, and preparing myself and reading those, and coming to the meeting with talking about real actions that we need to perform.
28:27
Lucas:Right.
28:28
Akshay:And so the transformation we have done on those kind of meetings are instead of wasting time in understanding what it is, to transforming it to what do we need to do? That's a shift of just knowing what the information is to actually doing something about it. Yeah. And I think that, that transformation, it needs to be constant.
I mean, you can take this thread and apply to everything with AI. If you're going to a meeting or if you're doing a task where you're just asking somebody to tell you what has happened- ... you're wasting time, you're missing the point. That information, you should get it like this without asking anybody.
Yeah. And you should actually be spending time about it, what are we gonna do about it?
29:13
Lucas:Yeah. Well, I, I feel like too that's, that's the jump between AI as an efficiency driver and AI as an effectiveness driver,
29:22
Akshay:right? Yes. 100%. 100%. And Lucas, you've been talking about this for a long time now, which is, like, how we can help businesses go from where they are today to actually being driving your business, right?
Rather than be- getting better at doing what you do today to driving the business. And I think we all have to do that shift in every aspect of it. And there's a huge potential around that. I'm, I'm super excited, like, you know, being in tech space for 26 years, being in AEC space for seven and a half years, the one thing that, that get me up in the morning and get me excited nowadays is the potential of what...
We are a technology provider, right? Our job is to help firms do their and meet their mission properly.
30:05
Lucas:Yeah.
30:06
Akshay:What makes me so much more excited and thrilled about where we are today is that we have a potential to help even more. Um, and that's the boundaries that we are pushing in terms of how can we help more.
And I think these inspire reports is giving a great insight about how much people are trying to get out of it and where they are today, and this yes and but is a very interesting element of, you know, how we can partner, uh, and, and help AEC go to the next level.
30:37
Lucas:Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's chat about the first or the, the final kind of yes, but here, 'cause I, I actually think it's connected, um, to the AI conversation, um, specifically because to date, this is starting to change, but to date, AEC firms have really applied AI in the area of BD and marketing, and more specifically proposal generation and things like that.
31:05
Akshay:Hmm.
31:07
Lucas:Almo- almost, you know, three-quarters of firms say that they're submitting more proposals this year than they were, uh, last year. However, as we were talking about a couple days ago, we're not really seeing a change in the win rate.
Right. So, um, lots of different factors there, and, and we don't have to talk about the AI piece of it.
Um, but just a final yes, but was, hey, we see a lot more activity in proposals. We're not really seeing the, the win rate kind of follow. Uh, we're not seeing that budge. I would love to see that, move a couple percentages. 50 is pretty good, and it's been, around 50 for as long as I can remember.
Um, but what advice would you have for businesses that are, that have increased their proposal volume? Maybe they're not seeing, um, the wins that they were hoping for there or, uh, the right opportunities, you know, f- fall into place. Uh, what would be your advice there for a firm this year?
32:10
Akshay:I think, Lucas, if you logically think about this, right?
When you say 75% of the firms are saying they're submitting more proposals this means on an average for a project, if you were getting X proposals, you're getting X plus two proposals now, right? Sure. By definition of that, that will reduce win rates.
32:33
Lucas:Yeah.
32:34
Akshay:Right? So I think the but here actually is a positive but, because I feel even if you increase that, you're still stabilizing at 50%.
And I think the reason for that is there is a lot more projects available in the market. So if you think about the numerator and denominator here, right? You increase the denominator, but you're now also increase the numerator, and hence your average is remaining the same. I feel like over a period of time, this number has to go down.
33:08
Lucas:Hmm.
33:09
Akshay:I feel like that we... Every time I hear this from the firms, we are saying no to projects
33:16
Lucas:Yeah.
33:17
Akshay:Every time I hear this, say that, right?
33:20
Lucas:Yep.
33:21
Akshay:So when they're saying no to the projects, they are not even fighting for that project. They're not even putting it in a category of, "I want, want, want to win this project."
Right. And I feel like what is gonna... what should happen over a period of time is, and this is a combination of so many factors, right? The talent is a factor, right? Yeah. Because if you don't have people, there's no point going after all of those, right?
33:45
Lucas:Yeah.
33:46
Akshay:If you, if you do not have a good structured go/no-go process, you really don't know what your goods are versus what your bads are.
Yeah. Right? So kind of it's accumulation of all of those things that come together, right? Yeah. And there's no good, there's no good or right answer on this, in my opinion. Y- everybody has to deal with it differently. In certain areas, like, I'll give you an example, right? Um, let's say you're trying to win...
Let's say you're pitching for data center work and you are an MEP firm, and you don't have enough engineers to actually do the work. What do you need to do is you need to hold back and not do that and worry about the projects that are in front of you right now first. Right? So I think the element about everybody has to deal with this differently.
What will be interesting to see is that in the next two, three, four years, if the, the win rates go down, it'll actually be good.
34:41
Lucas:Right.
34:42
Akshay:The thing that I think will balance that win rate going down is that people will get smarter about not even pursuing or going and fighting for the work that does not fit strategically to what they need to do.
I think we are, we are good at doing, "If I don't have the resources, I don't want to fight for that." But we are not good about identifying projects that are more strategic fit for me compared to the other ones. We all, I've heard this from all the people, "I want to go after my pet projects," right? And those pet projects doesn't need to align with the strategic one.
Then as you get bigger and bigger, I've heard this from a lot of firms, it actually becomes a bigger problem because there are more people and there are more opinions and there are more pet projects, and hence you make it even more difficult. So my advice to people is, in order to take handle around that, actually go back to your go/no-go process.
Get better at being more confident about what you're gonna say no to.
35:40
Lucas:Right.
35:41
Akshay:That's the right approach where you will be pushing the win rates to still remain at this 50%, because you won't be wasting time on things that you shouldn't be pursuing.
35:53
Lucas:Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that. I, I love, I love that. Um- let's pause for a second.
Um, I'm just noting the timestamp, 39 minutes. Um, do you want me to do a different tee up? Like everything you just said was perfect, but my tee up was "Eh, it's like 50%'s bad." I feel like... Is it, are we gonna-
36:17
Akshay:I think it's, it's raw, it's real. Yeah. I think it's totally good, man. I- Okay ... I think we did a good job of like kind of framing that.
Okay. I got to run, Lucas, because I need to prepare for our onsite. So can we do a final one around, uh, the opening one that we were talking about?
36:34
Lucas:Yes. Yep. Yeah, so let's, let's jump into that. Um, so, uh, you just finished up the yes, but on the 50% win rate. Um, okay. Yep Uh, great. So Akshay, I wanted to close our, our time going kind of back to our why.
Why do we do this report? Why is it important to us? What are the things that we're trying to, um, accomplish with it? And how would you summarize that from your perspective in the firms that you talk with?
37:17
Akshay:Um, one of the biggest thing is about, you know, we are, we are all about this industry.
We spend time, we learn. I think this becomes a way to bring it all together, uh, and, and allow people a place where they can share their opinion I... And I, we have seen more and more people doing surveys that we send out, which is really good, which means there's more perspectives coming into the place.
This year, I'm so proud on how our shift between what sizes of firms, as well as what kind of firms are giving us a survey. And if you look at it in a very interesting manner, you'll notice that the size percentage actually matches with the percentage of what is in the industry.
38:05
Lucas:Yeah.
38:06
Akshay:So that gets you the alignment around that we are getting the right amount of mix of that, uh, answers.
And to me, the why behind for us is to collate that information and allow people who... to understand a perspective which comes from multifaceted approach, and understand that perspective so that you can actually learn from that and apply that within your own strategy, within your own firm, which in turns help drive and make AEC businesses better at what they're doing.
Which, at the heart of our why as a company is, we exist to help you as an AEC firm do better, whether we do that through a tool, or whether we do this through this report, or whether we do this through even conversations that we have with you. So all of this drive the why, which is helping AEC firms get better at doing what they do.
39:06
Lucas:Yeah. I'll never forget, I was having a conversation, um, with a client, and they said, "I started working at this company, I was new to the industry, I picked up the AEC Inspire report, and it gave me tips on the strategy I wanted to deploy within the business." And I mean, for one, that meant so much to me that someone would take and, and learn from this work, Akshay.
Um, but I think that circles right back around to what you just said, which is, "We exist to help AEC firms do business better." And so by way of closing, um, thanks for joining us today. We hope that this year's report accomplishes just that. We hope that it, uh, gives you, um, a sense of direction and guidance in this, kind of, um, state of changing times that we live in, and that it allows you to help, uh, allows you to do your business, whether that be architecture, engineering, or construction, just a little bit better.
So Akshay, thanks for joining us today. Thank you all for joining us as well. And with that, we'll sign off.
40:16
Akshay:Thank you, Lucas.