Want More Time—Or Just Don’t Have Enough of It?
One of the things preconstruction teams struggle the most with is time: specifically, not having enough of it. If you’re an estimator reading this, we won’t need to explain much further. From endless deadlines to project owners asking for more and more changes, estimators are constantly on the go. Preconstruction often gets a bad rap for being an industry especially slow to change, but you can’t exactly blame them when there just isn’t enough bandwidth to even think about making those changes, much less implement them.
But what if we told you it doesn’t have to be like this? That you can get out of the office while the sun is still out? Or that you can get enough time back in your day to start focusing on high-value activities like data analysis?
Don’t worry, we don’t gatekeep. The answer lies in our revolutionary construction estimating software, DESTINI Estimator. Yes, it’s a big change—maybe the biggest one your company has ever made. But at Beck Technology, we firmly believe that the temporary growing pains of evaluation and implementation are more than worth the results. Clients like Life Time Construction, Gilbane, and Russell Construction have been able to save time, money, and resources with DESTINI Estimator. Justin Wetherby at Gilbane says, “We don’t have to pull an estimate together anymore. We go in and get our work done. That time and pain [pulling together an estimate] is eliminated.”
But even more importantly, they’ve used that extra time to capitalize on initiatives that had previously been on the back burner, such as turning their preconstruction efforts into a profitable part of their contracting process or developing estimate templates to improve workflows and predictions.
Maybe you already have a hundred different ideas of what you would do if you had a construction estimating software like DESTINI Estimator. But if you don’t, we want to share with you the three high-level preconstruction activities you could introduce to your preconstruction efforts.
- Pursue more projects
- Charge for preconstruction work as a separate cost
- Make better decisions earlier by tracking the preconstruction data lifecycle
Pursue More Projects
Every general contractor wants to be able to pursue more projects. But that isn’t always possible when your preconstruction workflows are bogged down by inefficiencies from moving between too many tools, not to mention the increased risk of accidental errors.
But with modern construction estimating software, which integrates multiple preconstruction tools under one roof and automates estimating workflows, you’ll get back all the time you need and more to pursue projects. You’ll be able to invest more energy in adding more work to your docket.
Begin Charging for Preconstruction Work as a Separate Cost
For many decades, preconstruction was considered a part of the overall construction package, and the cost for preconstruction was frequently either nonexistent or lumped in with other existing costs. But many general contractors are beginning to see just how valuable their preconstruction activities are, and as a result, they are using construction estimating software to implement separate pricing for work done in the preconstruction phase.
Why does construction estimating software allow general contractors to do this? With software like DESTINI Estimator, which integrates with Microsoft’s PowerBI data visualization program, estimators can actually create highly customizable dashboards to show project owners why certain requests will cost what they do and how the preconstruction team arrived at certain pricing. They can even show project owners how a project estimate will adjust according to regional differences, material changes, and labor changes.
Additionally, as mentioned above, construction estimating software enables more powerful data analysis—which also means more high-value work. As a result, many general contractors are using technology to explain to project owners why preconstruction is so important and why they must charge separately for it.
Track the Preconstruction Data Lifecycle/Data Analysis
When you use outdated or clunky estimating software like Excel or MC2, it can be extremely difficult to perform analysis on the data you’re generating, and even harder to track what happens to data created during the preconstruction phase as it moves throughout the entire project. Understanding what happens to this data is vital in order to make better decisions earlier.
Construction estimating software is the key to getting back your time and focusing on high-value activities.With construction estimating software like DESTINI Estimator, you can set up your existing cost database to integrate with Estimator so that anyone on your team can quickly and easily access all past and present project data. This reduces the potential for error and helps your team build their estimates much more quickly. Being able to analyze the data you’re generating also allows you to improve your predictions and even begin to develop estimate templates for certain projects.
At Beck Technology, we believe that moving to an integrated construction estimating software like DESTINI Estimator will benefit not just your team, but your entire company. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can start spending your team’s time on these high-level preconstruction activities, click the button below.
