Cardiff Metropolitan University’s School of Management has a long-standing reputation for supporting the Welsh Government’s drive to improve productivity and competitiveness across key sectors. When asked to help address performance challenges in the construction industry, a sector vital to Wales’ economic growth, the University needed a robust, evidence-based approach to identify performance gaps and guide improvement.
“We were asked by the Welsh Government to develop a diagnostic tool to help increase the productivity of Welsh construction companies,” explains Jeff Davies from Cardiff Met’s School of Management. “In our search for benchmarking partners, we came across the Growth and Productivity Platform (previously Benchmark Index) as a system that could meet the sector’s needs.”
The Welsh construction sector faced familiar but complex challenges: low productivity growth, fragmented supply chains, and limited access to consistent, comparable data to inform improvement strategies. Many firms lacked visibility into how their performance compared to peers, making it difficult to identify where to focus their efforts.
“The industry needed something bespoke,” notes Davies. “Construction businesses operate differently from other sectors, so we needed to design key performance indicators that reflected those unique characteristics.”
Cardiff Met’s goal, aligned with Welsh Government priorities, was to improve competitiveness, productivity, and resilience through a data-driven understanding of business performance.
Working in partnership, Cardiff Metropolitan University developed a bespoke version of the platform tailored specifically for the construction industry.
The platform provided:
This collaboration allowed Cardiff Met and the Welsh Government to embed a professional, consistent diagnostic process that enabled advisers and business leaders to work from the same evidence base.
“Benchmark Index helped us identify where performance gaps existed,” says Davies. “Once those were clear, we could work directly with companies to create action plans to close them.”
The results were significant. Participating Welsh construction firms achieved measurable improvements in multiple dimensions of performance, including growth, employment, and financial resilience.
“At the end of the programme, the improvements were clear, turnover was up, employment was up, and the financial health of businesses had improved,” says Davies. “And that was directly down to the benchmarking process.”
Following the success of the Welsh Construction Benchmarking Project, Cardiff Metropolitan University plans to expand the use of the GC Insight Growth and Performance Platform across additional sectors and initiatives.
“We have many plans to use the platform in the future,” Davies concludes. “It’s a proven way of improving productivity, and we look forward to continuing to work with the team on new projects.”
By integrating the GC Insight Growth and Performance Platform into its productivity programmes, Cardiff Metropolitan University delivered measurable, evidence-based improvements for Welsh construction firms. The approach provided a consistent, data-led framework for support, empowering businesses to make informed decisions, improve competitiveness, and build stronger, more resilient foundations for growth.
“I would definitely recommend the platform to others as a way of improving productivity,” says Davies. “It delivers real, tangible results.”
Discover how the GC Insight Growth and Performance Platform can help your organisation deliver consistent, data-driven support that boosts productivity and business growth. Book a discovery call here.
