Embracing Digital Transformation for Sustainable Business in the Construction Industry

Abstract

In the current digital era, the adoption of digital transformation in construction industry is still slow as compared with other industries and construction company still encounters numerous challenging issues such as project delayed, cost overrun, quality of work and environmental issues to meet client expectation as well as regulatory compliance. This study is conducted to find out the ways for implementing the innovation and digital transformation in Malaysia construction industry in order to gain the competitive benefits in stiff working environment for business sustainability as desired by contractor company.The purpose of this research is to explore how innovation can lead to business sustainability and on time delivery of projects in the construction industry and explore what type of digital transformation can enhance the business sustainability in the construction industry. Quantitative research methodology is used with Six -point Likert scale method for data collection. The structured questionnaire is sent to 20 selected professional personnel working in the Malaysian construction industry. This methodology is used for collecting and quantifying data on the factors of innovation and adoption of digital transformation in construction industry and the impact on the business sustainability. The originality of this study focuses on the evolution of the construction industry in digital era. With the innovation ideas and creativity driven by construction players, practitioners and collaboration effort with government and private organizations, numerous digital transformation technologies emerge in construction industry such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), IoT (Internet of things), project tracking software, etc. for integrating all digitalisation system into central networking platform, for providing fast and accurate information in real time connection to all the stakeholders, for earlier detection of design risks prior to implementation, for providing impressive work planning and emergency plan to tackle the uncertainty challenges issues. This study will contribute useful knowledge and key factors to construction players, practitioners and stakeholders for driving the innovation and leveraging digital transformation for construction company to stay competitive in international arena. Embracing the innovation and digital transformation culture, not only enhances company productivity, cost and time saving but also leads the construction company into sustainability of economic, social, environment, digital culture and profitability. This research also provides practical guidelines to all construction players for achieving business sustainability.