Is technology the future of construction estimating?

With a new King, new Prime Minister, the lingering effects of Covid-19, Brexit and the energy crisis, big things are happening in the UK economy. Now is the time to assess the impact to your construction estimating and tender functions and the actions you need to take

Early results from a recent UK Construction Survey undertaken by The Access Group to look at industry attitudes to the economy and technology have found that a huge 88% of construction professionals, including many senior estimators, believe that the economy will have a negative effect on their business in the next 12 months. What’s more, 71% believe that their profit margins on their services will shrink over the same timeframe.

Despite this, nearly 80% of all respondents expected their organisation to either stay the
same or to grow at the same time. While these results may change slightly when the report is released in full, it shows that despite challenges with the economy, industry professionals remain confident about the opportunities for growth.

How do construction estimators plan to ensure they continue to support the profitability of their organisation and not fall behind competitors?

Having worked for many years with construction companies looking to improve their profitability, improve relationships with clients and get better visibility of their projects, Andy Day, senior construction estimation software specialist at The Access Group, has some key pointers on what estimators can do to ensure they’re ahead of the curve going into 2023.

Build rock solid, reliable relationships with subcontractors

Clear communication between both parties is key to all working relationships, not least therelationship between a contractor and subcontractor. Responding quickly to tenders will increase your chances of the subcontractor being awarded the contract as contractors are keen to get worked started as quickly as possible.

Keeping in regular contact throughout the duration of a project will greatly reduce the possibility of any miscommunication issues.

Keeping to the initially agreed budget and schedule is the number one factor that will lead to stronger working relationships between contractors and subcontractors. If the subcontractor goes over budget or past the agreed milestone deadlines, this can have negative impacts on the reputations of both parties and lead to a damaged business relationship and, crucially, reduced profitability.

However, if changes do arise, this is where the communication aspect can make all the difference, from negotiating a new deadline to providing a clear view on what’s happening on site. With budget and time being two of the most important factors in delivering a successful product, it is important that subcontractors can accurately predict what they will need. This should be reflected in bidding. Be honest and accurate in terms of what can be achieved competitively.

This is where technology can help. Careful analysis of previous work and what it cost to deliver can be referenced and should be used to guide future work. Using tools like Access ConQuest estimating software ensures that the contractor and subcontractor benefit from using a common platform. It makes it easier to analyse previous work and provides a means of sharing estimates and related documentation more easily between the contractor and subcontractor.

This improves transparency and helps to prevent duplicated efforts, leading to more productive working relationships between contractors and subcontractors.

Cut the time taken to estimate and ditch Excel

Many construction companies still use Excel for their day-to-day running of their sites, tracking their finances and estimates to win their bids. Spreadsheets are an easy tool but often pushed beyond their means – especially considering the value that data brings to a business. It’s increasingly obvious these tried and trusted tools are no longer up to the task.

In a recent article discussing the best tools for data analysis, Forbes stated: “The biggest barriers to benefiting from advanced analytics are certainly now organisational, rather than technological.”

More than 90% of spreadsheets contain serious errors, while more than 90% of spreadsheet users are convinced that their models are error-free.

It’s not only accuracy that is a problem with spreadsheets, but the high manual effort to input data and manage sheets, lack of scalability, difficulty getting real-time data and wasted time managing separate sources of data all impact your profitability.

There are plenty of useful data analytic tools that can replace your Excel spreadsheets, but the construction industry doesn’t operate like most other sectors. It’s a vast, complex working environment with strict guidelines and even stricter margins. You need to use software built for the construction industry.

My experience has seen our construction estimating software, Access ConQuest, help hundreds of UK organisations shave hours off their estimating process while increasing accuracy and communication with subcontractors.

Challenges faced by estimators

Returning to the early results of the UK Construction Survey, estimators ranked the time-consuming estimating process as the number one challenge they face in their role, with time-consuming reporting and manual data input and manual errors coming second and third.

It’s clear that to keep ahead in the challenging economic climate, estimators need to embrace technology that addresses these challenges, cuts their manual workload and allows them to focus on the core task of estimating costs and managing relationships, the key activities which can drive profitability in their organisation.

Without the right technology in place, estimators will be stuck with less efficient processes, not only continuing to struggle with the challenges they currently face but risking the profitability of their organisation and being left behind by competitors.

Carol Massay