This document summarizes findings from a survey of New Zealand architectural and construction professionals regarding product selection and specification trends. Some key points: - Over 70% of specified products are familiar to designers due to a desire to reduce risk and increase efficiency by using tried and tested products. Familiarity is even higher for structural/enclosure products that carry more risk. - Leading suppliers maintain market share by providing thorough documentation, easily accessible details, and exceptional technical support for specifiers. Good documentation and support helps reduce the risk of specifying new products. - New product launches require demonstrations and samples to build specifier confidence and familiarity so the product comes to mind for future projects. Documentation of past local use is also

1. THE HABITUAL SPECIFIER 01
Research on the behaviour and preferences
of New Zealand architectural and construction
professionals in relation to product selection
SPECIFIER
INSIGHTS
2014
THE HABITUAL SPECIFIER
LAUNCHING NEW PRODUCTS
PLANNING FOR GROWTH
IN THIS REPORT:

2. THE HABITUAL SPECIFIER

3. 24
28
32
36
GROWING
MARKET SHARE
Loyalty and avoiding substitution
LAUNCHING NEW
PRODUCTS
Building confidence
ALIGNING YOUR
PRODUCT
INFORMATION WITH
TECHNOLOGY
Mobile use
Specification templates
and CAD formats
WHAT DOES THE
INDUSTRY LOOK
LIKE TODAY — AND
TOMORROW?
Forward work
Staffing
CONTENTS 03
CONTENTS
04
06
12
16
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE HABITUAL
SPECIFIER
Familiarity by category
What this means for suppliers
WHY SHOULD YOU
BE NOTIFIED WHEN
SPECIFIED?
Reasons to inform
Reasons not to inform
HOW DOES
YOUR PRODUCT
DEMONSTRATE
COMPLIANCE?
Council requirements
Post-construction information

4. THE HABITUAL SPECIFIER
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The survey data from this report was collected in
October 2013 from 3,116 online respondents — a
sizeable sample of New Zealand architectural
and construction professionals. For interpretative
purposes, the analysis in this report often
separates respondents into two specifier types:
(1) “design professionals”, specifically those
that identified their profession as architect,
architectural designer or interior designer and
(2) “construction professionals”, including those
that identified as project managers, builders and
contractors. When the term “specifier” is used, it
refers to both respondent groups.
OVERALL FINDINGS
At the time of publication, the New Zealand
building industry is heading into a period of
significant growth. This report focuses on habitual
product specification by design and construction
professionals and how product suppliers can
influence it.
Habitual specification is the tendency specifiers
have to use familiar products. It is driven by
several factors, namely the desire of design
professionals to reduce risk (by working with tried
and tested products) and to achieve efficiency
in specification (working with what they know,
not having to spend inordinate amounts of time
finding and detailing new products). In addition,
increasingly tight timeframes and compliance
documentation requirements only serve to
encourage using the familiar.
Our 2013 survey showed that over 70% of
all products specified are familiar to design
professionals and that number is higher if the
product is of a structure or enclosure classification,
as these are the categories that present the most
risk in a situation of product failure. For established
suppliers with sizeable market share, this can
be taken as an encouraging sign, but for those
new to the market, breaking specification habits
requires a content, marketing and service strategy.
The goal should be to develop strong levels of
specifier comfort with your product and provide
comprehensive technical documentation to help
reduce the risk of trying something new.
Each year EBOSS conducts a survey of New Zealand architectural and construction
professionals, gaining insight into the trends of product selection and specification.
This report is an analysis of 2013 survey data and provides product suppliers with
recommendations to shape product marketing strategies and content management. It
complements, rather than supersedes, the 2013 Specifier Insights report.
SIMON CATOR
Specifier Marketing
simon@eboss.co.nz
+64 9 551 6903
+64 21 502 264
ABOUT EBOSS
EBOSS is an online library of architectural
products from over 200 of New Zealand’s
leading product suppliers, used by an active
audience of over 35,000 architectural,
design and construction professionals
www.eboss.co.nz
MATTHEW DUDER
General Manager
matthew@eboss.co.nz
+64 9 551 6902
+64 21 675 960

5. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 05
Holding onto market share may seem an
easy task for leading suppliers, given the
conservative nature of design professionals.
However, companies with traditionally strong
numbers of specification must not rest on
their laurels. Compliance requirements have
become increasingly exhaustive for design
professionals. Leading suppliers make the design
and documentation process easy for specifiers
by providing thorough technical literature, easily
discoverable details and product use cases.
Those suppliers that design professionals
stick with are consistently improving their
documentation and website usability for
specifiers. Exemplary suppliers also provide
exceptional technical support, where questions
are addressed by someone who understands
not only the product, but the environment that
design professionals are working within.
When it comes to launching new products,
aside from supporting documentation,
being considered by design professionals
requires providing practical and interactive
demonstrations of your product (such as
practice presentations and trade show displays).
Meanwhile samples allow specifiers to engage
and explore at their own pace. The focus of
these demonstrations is to establish comfort
with your product so that when the time comes
to specify (a) the product comes to mind and (b)
design professionals are confident enough to
research and explore it further. Note that product
demonstrations and confidence building must
be supported by a high level of quality assurance
documentation. Design professionals need to see
New Zealand case studies, New Zealand testing
data and evidence that the product works in New
Zealand conditions.
A common query suppliers have is the success
rate of specification — it is one thing to have a
product specified by design professionals, but
another to ensure that specification becomes
actualised. Specified products that avoid
substitution at the construction phase are those
that are seen as (a) a “system” (ideally one that is
not replicated easily) or (b) having a unique point
of difference from potential substitutes.
MATTHEW DUDER
General Manager
EBOSS
Not all specifiers see the value in notifying
suppliers of specification. However, being notified
of a specification provides an opportunity to offer
the design and construction team the necessary
support to avoid substitution. Suppliers that are
notified tend to communicate effectively with
architects and designers, ensuring availability of
supply, risk mitigation, accurate pricing and that the
products used will allow design professionals to
achieve their vision.
It is clear from this survey that design and
construction professionals alike are cognisant of
how much extra resource is needed to service
a growing market. Even in late 2013, a quarter of
design and construction businesses felt they did
not have enough staff to meet current demand.
Two in five do not believe they have enough to
meet near future demands. Qualitative research
suggests that businesses will be limited by staffing
shortages.
This means that design and construction
businesses will need to do more with less. Design
professionals will not have time to trawl through
incoherent information to deduce a product’s
suitability, so this is an opportunity for suppliers to
make design and documentation easy — without
superfluous information that design professionals
disparagingly refer to as “fluff”. Product literature will
need to be thorough but concise, easily accessed
and navigated. Design professionals are implying
that they will simply use products where the
specification process is easiest.