What technology investment is vital for a company to make to increase productivity?
Matt Harris
Chief Product Officer
Viewpoint
Having integrated cloud and mobile construction management solutions that connect the office, team and field is vital for continued success and growth.
Over the years, contractors have invested more in dedicated software solutions, but having siloed solutions for different functions that don’t communicate or share data well among them can slow productivity. This lack of collaboration between executives and financial managers in the office, subcontractors and vendors on the project team, and supervisors on the jobsite can add weeks or months to project timelines.
Integrated, cloud-based construction solutions include complete functionality for contractors’ back office and operations, and they enable data sharing among accounting, contract management, project management and the jobsite—improving productivity and reducing administrative headaches. By providing these solutions in the cloud, and through browser and mobile applications, any contractor can take advantage of the power of these systems without having to make a huge investment in hardware and network infrastructure.
Dennis Lyandres
EVP of Sales
Procore
In order for us to maximize productivity, it is important to adopt tools that fit our existing workflow and simplify tasks that are otherwise a time suck.
Investing in a cloud-based technology that puts an emphasis on mobile-first development will give your team a tool that allows them to access the right information when and where they need it—whether that’s in the office or out in the field.
It is also important to adopt a platform with an open API, allowing for the potential for solutions to talk to one another, something we’ve created with our App Marketplace. This ensures the most updated information is disseminated.
At Procore, we’ve always worked with our end users—construction professionals—to ensure that the products we launch solve real-world problems. So, it’s important to make sure your technology investment is being developed with the proper research.
Look for a technology partner that is going to make your life easier, not more complex.
Dan Hicks
Chief Operating Officer
InEight
One of the fastest ways companies can boost productivity and reduce their exposure to risks is by focusing on technologies that connect the field to the office. Technology can provide real-time visibility into progress, quantities, materials and labor. This helps everyone from executive management to foremen make informed decisions on the best use of resources and how to keep projects on track.
The use of mobile phones and tablets in the field also can dramatically increase productivity by eliminating data entry related to traditional paper-based forms, such as time cards and inspections.
Looking beyond field execution, project cost management, project administration, document management and project information modeling are also key areas to consider for technology spending.
Construction companies can further maximize their technology investments by implementing solutions that integrate easily with each other. This will allow them to gain a more complete view of their projects and where they stand.
What factors do insurance and bonding companies consider in the underwriting and prequalification process?
Kevin Waldron
Senior Vice President & Director
Chubb Surety
During the underwriting process, sureties generally consider, among other things, the contractor’s organizational capability and financial capacity to perform the project, the historical track record of the contractor in performing projects of similar size and scope, the contractor’s total potential backlog, and whether the project is within the contractor’s expertise and discipline.
Sureties also consider the contractor’s experiences, if any, with the project owner, the terms and conditions of the proposed bonded contract, the contractor’s use and familiarity with proposed subcontractors, and if subcontractors will be providing bonds.
All of this information may not be available during the pre-qualification stage, where sureties are often asked to provide a non-committal letter to the project owner indicating, among other things, that the surety is willing to consider providing bonds on behalf of the contractor in connection with its work on the project subject to the surety’s ability to underwrite the contractor’s proposed work on the project once all the pertinent information becomes available.
What are some things that a construction company can do to reduce costs and increase productivity?
Michael Praeger
CEO and Co-Founder
AvidXchange
Construction companies can reduce costs and increase potential productivity in several ways. During the early stages of the construction phase, a general contractor needs to secure all the anticipated costs with purchase orders and subcontractors. By doing so, the contractor mitigates the risk of price increases in the middle of the project.
To reduce cost and increase productivity, AvidXchange, a leading fintech provider of accounts payable and payment automation for midsize companies, has worked with construction companies through the AvidXchange Invoice and AvidXchange Pay solution.
Under AvidXchange Invoice and Pay, the application is designed to mirror a company’s current approval processes and workflows while eliminating paper and creating more efficiency—helping to build the working relationship between all parties with a single source of truth.
What is the best way for a company to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of itself?
Mike Ode
President
Foundation Software
Lead with your TOWS. In other words, contractors should turn SWOT on its head. Most people begin with their strengths and weaknesses, but if you give your employees 30 seconds, they’ll probably be able to list off most of them right away. The challenging part is going to be identifying what’s on your horizon—your threats and opportunities. And that’s where the real value of SWOT is for your company.
You can’t predict the future, but you can project yourself into it. What’s out there for your business? What might you be in a position to take advantage of? And what might be looming on the horizon that you could be vulnerable to? Finally, what do these expose about your strengths and weaknesses?
Approaching SWOT backward, you might discover that complacency or the status quo is the biggest threat to real, concrete opportunities. From there, you can look at your strengths and weaknesses not in the abstract, but in connection to real opportunities and real choices that you can make to drive your business forward.
Is it the responsibility of the contractor or the insurance company to ensure certificates of insurance for subcontractors and vendors are up to date?
Michael Baker
Vice President of American Global of Pennsylvania
American Global LLC
An uninsured or underinsured subcontractor or vendor presents a major risk for a contractor. Before work begins on any project, signed contracts containing strong insurance and indemnification provisions should be collected from any subcontractor or vendor involved in the project.
The indemnification provision is the most effective way to transfer risk to another party, and the insurance program in place is the financial vehicle to support that transfer. Certificates of insurance are the primary mechanism for confirming that the required insurance coverage is in force, but a contractor should take heed when reviewing.
The certificate is an imperfect snapshot in time and subject to error. It does not reflect reductions in aggregate limits due to payment of claims, and the coverages listed (additional insured, waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory, etc.) may not always be properly supported by the correct endorsement on the insurance policy. As with any risk inherent to the contractor’s business, ultimate responsibility to ensure that the risk is effectively managed, transferred, funded or avoided resides with the contractor.
