Estimators create vast amounts of construction cost data but traditionally do nothing to leverage that data. It’s not your fault, though. Disconnected workflows and multiple software that don’t integrate make the collection and storing of that data nearly impossible, much less make it easy to recall that data so you can provide cost certainty to owners.
In the world we live in today where almost everything is accessible instantly (or same day), owners expect project information to be readily available. What is going to win projects is being able to provide real time feedback and data to owners when they want it.
This is exactly what Stewart Carroll, Beck Technology’s Chief Customer Officer, discusses with Todd Weyandt, host of the podcast Bridging the Gap. Stewart notes that, around the early 2000s, a shift started emerging within the construction industry. “Instead of ‘we need data,’” says Stewart, “we started to hear, ‘we need reassurance that the data is correct.’”
Being able to not only capture data but to verify it and track it across the project lifecycle is essential. Additionally, as contractors tried to remain competitive in an already highly competitive market, data analysis is a way they can help themselves stand out from the competition.
There are a lot of products out there that estimators use that haven’t been updated in decades. You have to ask yourself, “How sustainable is Excel or Sage in the long term?” Stewart says, “The world has obviously changed…Unquestionably, these tools work, but do they work to the degree that you can still be in business in the future?”
The window of time between deliverables is narrowing and narrowing. We absolutely must be more efficient in preconstruction.
With half of construction projects being delivered by a collaborative method over design-bid-build, preconstruction is getting involved earlier in the life of the project, is taking on more services, and the length of providing preconstruction services is getting longer.
The only way to keep up is to increase the efficiency, speed, and accuracy of your process. Data driven estimating tools like DESTINI Estimator will help you provide owners with certainty on cost and schedule and give them the information they want earlier and quicker.
The ability to capture all the data points at every milestone in the life of a project allows you to analyze how the project went and not just if you lost or gained money.
Weyandt points out that now, in today’s environment, the name of the game is to disrupt yourself before someone disrupts you - and part of that disruption includes actively seeking out preconstruction tools that allows you to truly make your data work for you instead of just letting it pile up and remain stagnant. A lot of that includes baby steps: if you don’t have a way of centrally storing and accessing your data, as well as a consistent way of tracking it, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to analyze it. It’s important to make sure that you have a platform that has both data collection and data analysis features so you can constantly improve your estimates and predictions, which allows you to start producing faster and more accurate results.
