Britain’s construction and property companies are lagging behind other sectors in exploiting the potential of e-business, Ernst & Young partner Malcolm Bairstow told a conference organised by Building last week.

The former Schal chief, speaking at Understanding How Developers Work, predicted that by 2004, the global value of e-commerce applications in the business-to-business sector would be £4000bn.

“In the UK alone, that means the value of construction industry transactions conducted on the Internet will be around £67bn in 2004,” he told the 120-strong audience.

Bairstow added that in the future the three most important things for commercial property development would no longer be “location, location, location” but “bandwidth, location, bandwidth”.

Other speakers at the London conference, which was sponsored by iScraper.com and held at the CBI conference centre at Centrepoint, included Geoff Wright, development director of Hammerson UK Properties, Barry Burman, projects director of Lend Lease Europe, Roger Madelin, chief executive of Argent, and Paul Lewis, a director of Stanhope Properties.