As part of a Water Industry Forum Seminar which took place in March, JN Bentley Director Jonathan Cain delivered a presentation looking at the changes the water industry is facing from a contractor’s perspective.
The seminar, which took place at The Rose Bowl in Leeds, not only looked at the challenges faced by the water industry but also discussed what innovative solutions need to be developed in order to address those challenges.
Alongside JN Bentley, the conference featured speakers from Yorkshire Water, Arup, Leeds University, Ofwat and the Environment Agency. The presentations were followed by a discussion involving the panel and the audience to debate what factors are preventing progress.
JN Bentley is well-known for its work within the water and water treatment industry and delivers major projects for several large clients in this sector. Drawing on this experience, director Jonathan Cain was invited to deliver a presentation on future challenges for the water industry, from the perspective of contractors working in the sector. In the presentation Jonathan addressed the key challenges contractors might face over the next few years, including the need to successfully manage boom and bust and how to continue to deliver outperformance. He also discussed the importance of taking a collaborative approach and the need for productisation, in order to achieve outperformance.
The conference attracted an audience of 80 people, with representatives from all aspects of the water industry present including water companies, contractors, consultants and universities. The event also had a waiting list, reflecting the momentum that is building around the Water Industry Forum’s work and the organisation has scheduled a series of similar seminars which will run throughout the year.
Commenting on the day, the Water Industry Forum chief executive, Peter Drake says:
“The seminar focused on the specific challenges that the water industry is facing and whilst there has been a lot of talk about the challenges in the past, we now really need to make some real progress. It was therefore very encouraging to see the factors preventing progress being debated at a round table workshop that followed the seminar. Even better, those at the workshop, which was exclusive to WIF water company and industry partners, subsequently agreed a number of practical steps to finding collaborative solutions to these specific issues.”
