The ‘force multiplier’ effect is understood to be the impact technology, equipment, strategy or formation has on a military unit or individual, its effectiveness and the overall objective and outcomes it can achieve.
When our construction sector works with the UK’s armed forces, I firmly believe we should strive to contribute to this force multiplier effect, through our actions and the built environment solutions we deliver.
While our expertise does not include the development of battle winning technologies, we do have a role in building the physical infrastructure that supports living, working, training that ultimately impacts operational effectiveness.
This article was written by James Dimmock, ISG’s defence sector director. You can find out more about James here.
This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
The UK Government recognises this opportunity and has placed it at the heart of the Government Property Strategy, published in August 2022, focusing on the delivery of space that performs and meets the needs of its customers; that is the civil servants, the teachers, clinicians and of course our service personnel.
This unashamedly customer-centric approach provides a step-change in our client’s expectations, but also highlights how we all must respond to infrastructure procurement, planning and delivery. Contractors have a pivotal role creating facilities and accommodation to support our armed services personnel in the UK.
There are well over 100,000 single living bed spaces for service personnel across the UK, many being renewed or upgrade now, creating significant opportunities for our sector to demonstrate its force multiplier effect to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) through the provision of enhanced built assets and facilities.
For many, maximising the wider impact of our activities requires a change in mindset and seeing the bigger picture. We must recognise that we’re not simply delivering a bed for our service personnel, but creating living accommodation that supports our defence capability, encourages comradeship and teamwork, enhances retention, attraction and wellbeing. I feel the opportunity here is to bring learnings from related sectors; for instance, in contemporary student accommodation, to then tweak and enhance single living accommodation (SLA) designs to further improve customer experience.
By focusing on the effectiveness of our armed forces, our strategy across every built environment touchpoint should be to support iterative gains that further elevate the capabilities of our service personnel. The eight-year scope of the property strategy provides the opportunity for closer collaboration between client and contractor, providing benchmarking and data collection to further inform decision making and build on that multiplier impact.
Our sense of pride, value and effectiveness is impacted by many factors. Service personnel are a unique community that are often called upon to do extraordinary activities in service of our country and way of life. Our collective industry response should be to approach every decision we take through a force multiplier lens, and we now have the framework and client focus to ensure this happens.
The force multiplier effect is always so important. Just a pity that we cut things to the bone and rely heavily upon it.
Problem with the multiplier effect is that it is reversable! Put enough into it over time and you to get a considerable growth in capability, take enough out and you slide back down the same curve…
It’s basic maths, but far too many politicians have selective understanding or read classics…
Cheers CR
The war in Ukraine demonstrates that the most important feature in success on the battlefield is the will to win and the absolute commitment of armed forces to make success happen. Yes its nice to have a good infrastructure in the rear but its doesn’t guarantee success and not at the cost of front line equipment. I worry that there continues to be attempts by politicians, some parts of industry with a vested interest and some commentators to find excuses for a lack of investment hoping to cover up the fact that we just do not have sufficient numbers of… Read more »
‘Will to win’ – important but don’t believe the media bud. That’s just the messaging of ‘these poor people are determined to win at all costs! Determined and fearless!’ Makes sure no one complains about the billions spent to bleed the Russians. It’s a proxy war bud. What’s actually important is numbers. You can give them all the whiz bangs you want, but they’ll be ground down. As for the ‘agree threat & then provide for it, ignore “2%”, could not agree more. Been banging this drum for years!!! Glad to meet someone who agrees. Commit to ‘we want to… Read more »
Hi Stu, Whilst I agree with what you and Alabama Boy are saying the problem comes when you are faced with a potential threat that you cannot deal with on your own. It all gets very complicated, who does what, why and when… And it needs to be sorted if an alliance is to work when the poop hits the fan. The down side of this (or the opportunity if you are a politician) is that the politicians can use the opaqueness of the situation to get away with phrases such as, “these effficiency enhancements (cuts) will enable our armed… Read more »
I don’t trust politicians either sir. Sadly the only people who want to be or are successful in being elected tend to be precisely the types we don’t want in charge. Wouldn’t trust most to run a McDonalds. I know why we don’t commit to a goal like that. It’s because if we did, successive governments would have to answer for why we can’t manage it. Look at Army numbers for example, review said we needed 86k ish. They couldn’t get past 78k (Capita!?). So next review surprisingly said ‘78k is the right number to aim for’ and ‘ooh, look… Read more »
What did I just read? What a pile of PR waffle and nonsense. “We’re making nicer barracks because soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel are people too & won’t work for us if they have to live in a slum”. There. Fixed it. As for “force multiplier”, that’s politician speak for ‘we have slightly better stuff so can get away with having a lot less of it’. Only causes a problem when the other guys get better stuff or breaks all your stuff with lots & lots more slightly inferior stuff eh…? This newspeak drives me potty. Here James, sack the… Read more »
That made me chuckle as I have just come out of a meeting with our PR team and basically said the same to them too!
He didn’t write this – I can tell you that just glancing at it.
The other things is that military accommodation does have to be pissed squaddy (or pissed matelot) proofed as well! Things do get to look like they have been ripped from the walls as they have been ripped from the walls.
But things like reliably heating, hot and cold water and a roof that doesn’t leak are rather more than basic!
You’re not wrong. This is pure advertising, and it stinks of “the MoD might be about to splash some cash on infra, quick write an article saying how good we’d be”
Do they think it makes them sound intelligent? Legitimate question. Who do they think it appeals to? Anyway, glad I could brighten your day.
Regards squaddie/matelot proof, I can certainly see that as an engineering challenge ha! Dry room, warm bed and hot shower is a minimum.
Hi Stu, When I was still in a large corporate they went through a management speak phase as well. It is just a scam, a cover up. Firstly, the management/marketting consultants need to wrap any good bit of advice they have up into pages and pages of clever sounding words and justifications, otherwise you’d wonder whet you paid for. Secondly, Most of us mere mortals wondered what we got for all the money spent. The directors on the otherhand waxed lyrical about how good the experience had been for the ‘team’ or risked looking like they had been ripped off,… Read more »
Hi CR, Couldn’t agree more. Done management training to Masters level & whilst I did learn new techniques & tools for analysis, too much was learning ‘management speak’ which appeared to be so senior managers can talk to other senior managers in a way that demonstrates ‘I’m a senior too’. It’s just so much nonsense & seems to be proving your education over actual learning. As for ‘consultants’, if a Director thinks he/she needs them, in reality he/she needs training or their team does. Seeing the woods despite the trees is a lot of what good management is about &… Read more »
Good housing isn’t a multiplier; bad housing is a divisor.
Thanks for the contribution James, interesting insight but I must say, your second to last paragraph is sooooooo corporate speak that I lost the message and was just counting joined up buzzwords!
Ditto!
Good accomodation is important if it is to enable the services to keep the few people they have and is an important message that should not be foregotten, but muddying the waters with coorporate speak is a quick way to lose the audience – especially on this site 🙂
Cheers CR
The Jury is out on whether James is doing this as PR, or he really cares. It is however an undeniable fact that both Single Soldiers accommodation and Married Quarters need to be fit for purpose. This is leading to both disillusioned service personnel and partners, resulting in “good people” leaving the military. For the want of a nail etc… Those living in the “block” certainly need enough storage space to separate their “kit, including webbing etc, from their civvies. I hope things have changed since I last lived in, but we could certainly have done with more storage and… Read more »
Some buzz-word waffle. If this is supposed to prove everything that’s right, it does the opposite.
Force multiplying. How about a massive dosage of some common sense. Maximise shared missile systems-inventories-standardisation, well armed ships, adequate numbers of missile platforms, planes, helos, drones, subs and fair pay and conditions for service personnel. As others are saying here, basically “less BS is more” for starters! Lol. 😆
Sorry Army, I left out tanks, soldiers, GBAD, artillery… and everything else you need. 😆
We need to hear some real stories not all this. Any updates with the T26s, T31s, anything on the T32 and T83s? These will hopefully be the real “force multipliers” for the RN and nation at least.
People who talk about multiplier effect often forget that you have to have something to multiply.
If you have insufficient forces to cover all threat angles and a time and place of the enemies choosing then you have a multiply by zero calculation.
Any child can tell you that anything multiplied by zero = zero regardless of the immense quality of the thing that is not available.
Daily mail reported over 600 homes were substandard , does force multiplier fix their heating ? A “step change ” , “most lethal ” have they employed Alistair Campbell ?
This reads like government PR waffle.