message from the CE
 
Dear Readers,

We live in a world of constant transformation. Every society (including business, profession, industry and country) has at different times attempted to create some form of change stability. Maintaining a status quo. However, we seem to be within unprecedented migration in modern history.

  • In 1970 an estimated 30% of the world’s population was urbanised
  • In 2000 this had increased to an estimated 49%.
  • By 2020 as much as 70% of the world’s population will be urbanised.
Most of this is intra-national and intra-regional migration in the developing world. People just following a natural instinct to move from relative dissatisfaction to relative opportunity. So what are the consequences if there is less investment than meets the demand for new urban facilities in the developing world?

I believe that over the 100 years between 1900 and 2000, the Net PresentValue (NPV) of expressed aspiration for quality of life has significantly outgrown the NPV of construction industry capacity to deliver on that aspiration.

If, due to geographic and cultural isolation, only 20% of  the  I,5 billion people in habiting our planet in I900 were relatively dissatisfied with their quality of life, it is likely that of the 6 billion people inhabiting our planet in 2000, more than 80% could be dissatisfied with their quality of  life.

This means that the total population growth over the past 100 years has been born into relative dissatisfaction!

How can we define our markets to meet our own aspirations as a business, while fulfilling the aspirations of the developing world society? In this issue of Robust, we explore aspiration as a driver of development.

Brian Bruce
Group chief executive
Murray & Roberts