Reflections: the year gone by and plans for 2014

2013 was a busy year for Claims Class but before we rush ahead with plans for 2014 it is important to give ourselves a (small) pat on the back and take note of our key achievements…

On the training side we delivered our 2-Day Intensive Training Course on construction claims in over 5 countries.

We took our 2-Day Intensive Training course on construction claims to Qatar, UAE, Ireland, Singapore and the UK. The Qatar and Singapore courses saw Claims Class develop Regional Partnership relationships with Quantum Qatar and the Singapore Institute of Building Limited, relationships which helped increase awareness of our courses and subsequently helped us train more of you living and working in those markets. Your feedback from those courses has been extremely positive and where we have received constructive criticism for smaller aspects of the course we have worked hard to implement those changes, subsequently improving the delivery of the course each time. Your feedback regarding suggestions for other courses for example, led us to partner with Sporle Consultancy Services and develop our 1-Day Principles of Forensic Delay Analysis Intensive Training Course. This new course launched in Dubai and was well received by our attendees.

As the primary tutor on our Construction Claims Distance Learning Course I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with our students throughout the year.

We accepted a lot of new students to the course, all of whom work in construction related fields, are at different stages in their careers and are from different professions. As a tutor, this means that each student has a different perspective on the course assignments and consequently face different challenges throughout the course. This leads to interesting discussions during our tutor-student tutorials. We also had a nice ratio of new male to female students and it is excellent to see more ladies holding strong positions in the construction industry.

Whilst training and education is our focus, Claims Class made good progress behind the scenes in 2013 that we hope will benefit you.

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) now accepts Claims Class courses as routes for professional development for CIOB members. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) now support Claims Class in the MENA region meaning that we are able to offer a 10% price reduction to any RICS members who register for our Intensive Training courses. We have also developed relationships with industry institutes, predominantly the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineers International (AACEI) and the Indian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (IIQS). I delivered CPD talks to members of both institutes, which were well received.

We increased our online presence, enhanced the way we communicate with you and now offer more ways for you to absorb information, contact and interact with us.

We launched our Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The main benefit from increasing our social media presence was the simple fact that we could reach more of you and interact with you in ways that we were unable to previously. Whilst we still think that e-communications have their place, Facebook and LinkedIn have allowed us to share information faster and gain your perspectives quicker than before.

A challenge for Claims Class earlier in 2013 was managing the volume of registrations we receive for our courses and maintaining a clean database of all the enquiries we receive. After researching the market, we shifted our registration process online using a tool called EventBrite that enables you to complete your registration and payments online in a matter of seconds. Having transitioned to MailChimp for all of our marketing and communications we now have a well-maintained database and the main benefit for you here is that you can manage your subscriptions and update your details as and when you choose.

The launch of the Claims Class Quarterly was also a key achievement for 2013. This is our way of staying in touch with you relatively often and sharing our latest news, industry insights and giving you the chance to learn from interesting articles and win prizes. It has proved popular so far and the feedback around its professionalism and quality has been very well received so thank you.

Now it’s time to build on the success of 2013 and ensure a strong start to 2014.

Claims Class will be implementing new course dates for our Intensive Training Courses. We currently have dates set up until July and will be looking to finalise our training calendar for September onwards.

We also plan to build on the success of our 1-Day Principles of Forensic Delay Analysis course and work with Sporle Consultancy Services to develop a more in-depth 2-day course.

Following feedback from course delegates, we also hope to introduce a new 1 or 2 day course on claims and the FIDIC suite of contracts before the end of the year.

Whilst we are already accredited by the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors and Quantity Surveyors International, I would like to see an increase in our accreditations this year. We are already in discussions with key industry institutes so watch this space.

If you have any suggestions or ideas for Claims Class in 2014, please do let us know. We are always happy to hear from you.

Happy New Year!