The Top 10 Benefits Of Good Business Intelligence For The Construction Industry

The Top 10 Benefits of Good Business Intelligence for the Construction Industry.

In order for construction companies to remain effective in the modern environment, reliance upon real time integrated business intelligence (BI) is becoming more and more critical. Even though modern BI has proven itself with some of the industry’s leading organisations, many are still reluctant to move forwards and embed the right software. For many, this is largely due to the assumption that the software itself is complicated or difficult to use even, though the leading products available today were designed and adapted specifically for the construction industry. For this reason, they have become eminently more user friendly and easily adopted by even the more technically challenged of users.

To help in making the decision to take that final step, here are the top 10 ways effective Construction Business Software and Intelligence can benefit you:

1.Business Speed

All of your data is available across all departments in real time allowing businesses to make more timely decisions. Although your business is likely to hold vast amounts of data, it is often held in autonomous systems and not formatted for integrated use. Modern construction software allows all data held to be integrated and analysed together giving true and accurate insights into the bigger picture facilitating better decision making and evaluation.

2. Armed with the Facts

Similar to the ‘speed’ that integrated data provides, modern business intelligence also provides the scope of information required to make the most informed decisions rather than going mostly on ‘gut instinct’. Although that ‘gut instinct’ was traditionally one of the value-added functions of an experienced employee or executive, it has been largely superseded by fact-based decision making centered on up to the minute, bespoke data that all but removes the element of guesswork. This effectively removes risk, in the majority, of the business decisions being made across the entire process and project

3. Maximise all Opportunities

Real time business intelligence gives an intricate breakdown of all aspects of a project from completed portions through to progress along the track to completion (on time and on budget data being arguably the most important). This allows a business to assess performance and delivery, in all areas, and the most effective software provides early warning for cost over runs plus the ability to reforecast, to get back on track.

4. Leverage Efficiency

A common complaint in the construction industry relates to the time and resources required to pull data and information from multiple sources. On top of the cost in time collating this information, the data collated is often outdated or inaccurate (based on estimations and projections that have not been adjusted and updated by integrated software). Utilising the power of state of the art construction applications allows this information to be accessed from a single point and ensures the information is fully up to date and accurate.

5. Tailored Reporting

It stands to reason that having an abundance of centralised data will allow a business to use that data in the ways that best fit their operational model. The most powerful Construction Software packages have the facility to add on bespoke reporting modules to easily communicate and display this data to maximum effect and in the most effective manner to be disseminated to the correct decision makers. Not only is this extremely efficient, it has the knock-on effect of allowing those decision makers to accurately respond to the data provided.

6. Singing from the same Hymn Sheet

Any experienced construction professional will have felt the frustration of progress and strategy meetings being elongated or even stalled completely by inconsistent data. Where data sources are not integrated, differences in the core information can create such inconsistency that effective outcomes can be almost impossible, or at best a poor compromise, due to the starting point being undetermined. With fully integrated information, that jockeying for position or, in some cases, avoiding responsibility can be eliminated by having absolute transparency and accountability clearly visible.

7. It is What You Know

In this digital age, having access to information in the field has become common practice. Professionals lacking this real-time data are put at a significant if not critical disadvantage. Integrated Intelligence solutions give the capability to access and employ vital information in any location and act on that intelligence to make in the field assessments and decisions from your portable devices.

8. Real Time Reporting

The days of collating information from spreadsheets and putting them into presentations (which at times can take hours if not days) are truly a thing of the past. Construction software has the capacity to take this workload away from your front-line employees and management teams. This allows them to focus on their true professional expertise and utilise their time in the best way possible to deliver business results rather than tying them up in creating PowerPoints and graphs to communicate them.

9. Understand Your Business

One of the most important aspects of succeeding in today’s construction environment is staying within profitable margins. The ability to identify key areas of strengths and weaknesses will allow businesses to readily identify where they should replicate successful aspects or employ corrective actions before it’s too late. Ask your prospective software partner to highlight where their solution can be used in this area with particular emphasis on real time cost and time over run reporting.

10. Deeper Insights

The trade in time and efficiency coupled with a natural reluctance to avoid tedious or repetitive tasks often leads to the level of data employed in manual reporting to be minimal (or the most readily available). Specialist software collates all data from all areas in exacting and accurate detail ensuring that the information being displayed and considered is not only accurate and complete, but fully up to date.

Summarizing the benefits of good business intelligence

Businesses that have embedded modern technology are able to thrive on opportunities and adapt to challenges that occur at any stage of a project from tender right through to delivery. The old adage of ‘opportunities not problems’ can be amplified by having immediate and early notice allowing your business to take the right actions in good time. Having the ability to be agile can be the difference between finishing a project with your margin in tact or operating at a loss.

Do you know “The Cost of Construction Software“?