You know how quickly profit fade can happen: A few rounding errors, unexpected price increases, and overdue invoices ... and you’re on the red side of the profit line. The construction industry already has one of the slimmest profit margins of any business. In a pandemic-affected world, unexpected changes happen even faster.
Successful contractors use accurate information to stay competitive. Modern businesses need construction analytics to understand cause and effect on hiring and retention, pricing and availability of materials, changing risk and compliance requirements, and communicating role-specific information across the organization.
But it’s not just a few leaders that need access to construction data. Almost everyone’s job is harder (more expensive) without it.
Read on for 5 ways to use Construction Analytics to increase your profit margin.
5 ways to use construction analytics to increase your profit margin
1. Information should be timely and accurate
Duplicate entry, human error, outdated information, and many other bad-data problems make good construction analytics impossible. In addition to the cost of entering (and looking for) information in multiple places, you can’t trust the results of bad data.
2. Connect the dots across the business
Great: You’ve got the data! But you need to use it. 95.5% of all data captured goes unused. You might have rows of numbers in Excel, but it takes more sophisticated reporting to analyze and generate insights, find patterns and leading indicators that you might not know to look for.
For construction analytics to be effective, it needs to include information and context from around the organization.
“Data is siloed and only accessible to certain companies, departments or disciplines, which gives stakeholders a very limited view into the status of the project as they are making decisions.”
3. Report on what matters by role
One way leaders (or anyone) fail to see risks is because the information is in a format that they don't understand or don't have time to interpret. Critical information may be buried in a spreadsheet of numbers, or in a dense report that no one has time to read.
A major, if less glamorous, opportunity to impact profitable decisions can be found simply in sharing the right information in a way that makes sense to the intended audience.
For example, a president or CEO of your company probably wouldn’t care much about excessive account privilege upgrade requests in the server logs… but they would care that they were at a high risk of losing customers because of a cyber attack on their servers.
See What's New in Construction Analytics
4. Make construction analytics widely available
Speaking of accessibility…
Many parts of the construction project need access to analytics, but they don’t all need the same thing; and in fact, access to many types of personal or financial data should be restricted.
Subcontractors need access to current project plans and material quantities, for example, but it would be a compliance violation if they had access to employees’ personal data.
Modern construction analytics are democratized: Available to make project work more accurate in every aspect, but with access restricted based on the role of the user.
Different people need different reports. Many opportunities are lost when information appears in a way that can’t be easily understood. To keep stakeholders engaged and informed, you need the ability to present different information in different ways.
By information type: Project estimates, construction accounting numbers, employee certification status… It takes many types of information to paint a clear picture of the business.
By format: Charts, graphs, dashboards...? The format of information determines how it is interpreted. A simple row of numbers on the P&L sheet, for example, might not reveal that a particular subcontractor has repeatedly exceeded their estimate, cost money on every project, and should not be rehired.
By accessibility: Data and analytics need to be easily accessible for responsive decision-making. In a fast-changing business environment such as ours, it’s not practical to ask back to the front office for one-off reports, and leave the field to find a computer to access the report.
For strategic decision-making, analytics must be accessible where you are — this often means mobile accessibility.
8 Major Cybersecurity Requirements That Contractors Need to Bid for Government Contracts
5. Big data needs big security
Of course we can’t talk about modern construction analytics without talking about data security.
Best-practice cybersecurity measures include:
SOC II Type 2: This internal controls compliance report captures how companies ensure customer data is secure, and how well their controls are working, and the areas of: data security, data privacy, confidentiality, availability, and process integrity
Secure SSO (Single Sign-On): Simplify good security for users with a single set of secure login credentials that are verified for use on multiple applications—so you can move between different programs without having to sign in multiple times
Viewpoint analytics for construction
Viewpoint Analytics, available as part of Trimble Construction One, is our data mobility tool for construction contractors to maximize their profit and uncover new insights.
Viewpoint Analytics is now mobile and available from Trimble Construction One
Viewpoint Analytics is integrated with your construction data and accessible from anywhere—so you can access your ERP data on your mobile device. Viewpoint Analytics brings both your standard and custom Vista reports to the web so you can take reporting on the road. Dashboards bring secure, shareable insights to more users than ever before.
See visual insights on construction analytics like:
New dashboards like Job Cost Detail, where PMs and accountants can make sure everything on the budget was in the estimate.
Quickly determine the age of outstanding commitments that you may have forgotten/overdue.
Do the materials you received match with what you expect to pay?
Are suppliers or contractors over or under-billed?
New mobile and web reports: All Crystal Reports 700 standard reports plus custom reports on the web.
Because next-gen analytics need good security, Viewpoint Analytics also has data-type security based on role by job and contract, and supports other security features like single sign-on (SSO).
If the last five years have shown us anything, it’s that we must be prepared for change and the future state. A new generation of data and analytics—along with new requirements of that data—is helping construction companies become more data-driven and stay competitive. See how Viewpoint Analytics can help.
