Professor Bill Minnis on how construction can adopt a ‘barriers create opportunity’ philosophy

As the Scottish construction industry navigates an era of heightened volatility, Professor Bill Minnis, a speaker at the upcoming inaugural Scottish Construction Summit, argues that today’s barriers are tomorrow’s opportunities.

Drawing on a diverse career spanning healthcare administration, academia, agriculture, and banking, Minnis offers a unique perspective on the challenges and strategic pivots required for the sector’s success.

“Most businesses don’t realise they’re all kind of in the same boat,” Minnis explains, but he notes that construction is “more sensitive” than most to economic turbulence, geopolitical shifts, and regulatory pressure. His time as a bank CEO during the 2007-2012 recession gave him an intimate view of the financial tightrope construction firms must walk.

A core challenge for the industry lies in its unique financial structure. Construction is capital-intensive, with irregular cash flow tied to project progress. This often creates a difficult cycle of high receivables and pressing payables, a model that traditional lenders can find unsettling.

Minnis saw this firsthand, dealing with developers who collapsed under pressure, leaving banks with huge losses. However, he champions a philosophy where such barriers create opportunities. For construction leaders, this means thinking beyond a single source of funding.

“Those who can figure out how maybe to go to private equity or go to other alternative sources of financing, it’s often to their advantage,” he suggests.

The key is to build long-term relationships with financiers who understand the industry’s seasonal ebbs and flows, while also exploring the globalised world of capital investment.

Succession planning is another critical area Minnis highlights. The traditional model of passing a family business from one generation to the next is no longer sufficient. “It’s not a one-person operation anymore,” he states, emphasising that future leaders need a far broader skill set to deal with everything from ESG requirements to complex global supply chains.

He advocates for proactive strategies to cultivate talent, such as encouraging the next generation to work for other companies to gain new perspectives before joining the family business. He also stresses the importance of embracing diversity by recognising the trend of more women entering and excelling in business and engineering. “This is not a choice,” he says, “this is a trend”.

Finally, to combat skilled labour shortages – a problem he sees as identical in the US and Scotland – the industry must start early. “You’re going to have to start early, 14 years old, 15 years old, getting them involved in the educational process,” Minnis urges. This includes promoting apprenticeships and funding university outreach programmes to build a sustainable talent pipeline for every role, from labourers to architects.

Ultimately, the message from Minnis for the leaders at the Summit is to broaden their focus. He argues that effective leadership requires watching four distinct levels simultaneously: their own company, mastering internal operations and cash flow; their competition, viewed not just as rivals but as potential partners for larger projects; the wider industry, understanding trends in finance and workforce development; and finally, the global environment, recognising how international politics, finance, and supply chains will inevitably impact local projects.

In an environment defined by “uncertainty” – which he says, unlike risk, cannot be measured – leaders must be adaptable and strategic. They must not only lead their teams but also work to “lead the industry” and educate government on the sector’s unique needs to ensure a stable and prosperous future.

Tickets for the Scottish Construction Summit, delivered by Scottish Construction Now, are available here.

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