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The construction industry is competitive. Your success depends upon how nimble you are at adapting to change. You must constantly evaluate your processes for potential efficiencies and sustainability all while keeping an eye out for the next big innovation. And you must keep the machine that is your business: well-oiled and running smoothly. This can be difficult. Especially when there is not enough time, resources and expertise within your company to do it all.
While the construction industry has been historically slow to adopt technology when compared to other industries, there has been a recent shift toward it. Construction companies are growing more and more reliant on technology because they have noticed it helps them be more competitive, it optimizes processes and increases efficiencies, saves money, reduces costs, and makes the job of running multiple projects, each with their own timelines, workforces, and needs – much easier.
It’s obvious, there are enormous benefits to adopting technology. That’s why it has become a necessity in the construction industry today. But just as there are risks involved in every aspect of construction, there are risks inherent in utilizing technology as well.
This is where managed IT services for the construction industry helps. It can help you offset and avoid risk and keep your company running smoothly.
The Many Reasons for Managed IT Services
There are many benefits and reasons why a construction company, or any other company in the construction industry would choose to implement technology in their company and hire a managed IT services company like Attain Technology.
It all comes down to what technology enables you to do and what you can achieve as a result of using it. I categorize it into five general areas:
- Productivity Tools and Business Software
- Customized Solutions Built for Your Construction Company and Your Specific Needs
- Connect Your Workforce
- Secure and Maintain Your Network and Data
- Makes You More Competitive
Productivity Tools and Business Software
First, there are the tools that help you do your job easier and better. Tools for project management, dispatching and schedule management, daily job logs, billing, drafting, fleet tracking, estimating and bids, change order management, job cost accounting, purchase orders and procurement, customer relationship management, and more.
All these tools are vital to your company if you want to streamline and optimize your business processes.
For instance, just take bidding jobs as an example. If you were to do it the old way, with pen and paper, it might take you weeks to get all the information together and submit your bid. But that bid isn’t final. You may have to re-work your bid four to seven more times. And for each project you bid on, you may only win one out of seven.
That’s a lot of work! And each time you have to re-work your bid, you are looking at investing another massive chunk of time.
But if you used bidding and estimating software, you could complete the initial bid and all the re-bids in a fraction of the time. Plus, you would be more accurate. Which means, you are making more money while you are saving money.
All of this affects your bottom line.
These time and cost savings help you understand why you need to adopt these tools and technologies. But realize, these are specialized technologies that require specialized experience. This is how a managed IT services company who is focused on serving the construction industry, like Attain Technology, can help you.
We understand these tools and know how to use them together to make your business run smoothly and efficiently. We can recommend specific construction technology solutions. If you have a problem and need assistance, we can walk you through it and help you solve the issue.
Customized Solutions Built for Your Construction Company and Your Specific Needs
At Attain Technology, part of our role is to guide you and help you select the hardware, software and other technologies you need to optimize your business processes.
Selecting your core productivity and business tools is important, but there are more layers and aspects required for a robust IT solution. You have to consider your current needs, all of your business roles and tasks, your data, it’s security, how your main office connects with your remote job sites, the capabilities your on-site workers have and more.
This requires an in-depth knowledge of the technological solutions available and a deep knowledge of the construction industry.
Depending upon your needs and your budget, along with a trusted managed IT services provider, you can design a solution that helps you work smarter instead of harder, cut the time it takes to complete complex tasks in half, make your estimating and bidding more accurate, cut the time it takes to perform essential functions like reporting, scheduling and payroll/time cards from tens of hours a week to less than an hour or even instant because it’s in real-time and it is constantly being tracked and measured automatically.
Technology and data give you insight into your company and help you cut costs, optimize your operations and save time – and as we all know: time equals money.
Connect Your Workforce
Technology gives you the opportunity to connect your remote workforce to your main office in several ways.
First, remote workers on your job sites need to send files and communicate with the main office, vendors, and others. CAD drawings and other files are too large to be sent by email and they need to be transmitted securely.
They need to be connected via Internet. The Internet and Internet connected devices, like mobile devices, gives them special abilities. They can access your business tools, data, and files so they can report work progress and other data. And they can use those same connections to bring down files they need to do their jobs.
This immediate access to data substantially reduces the time it used to take to perform basic, essential functions and increases the odds of doing it right the first time and being on-time and on-budget.
Second, when you can connect to your team easily via phone, it strengthens the connection between each remote location in the field and the main office. Using personal cell phones and contact lists is problematic. Much can be done using VOIP and dedicated devices to keep your team connected.
Not only does this connectivity build and strengthen your team and increase employee engagement, it also allows them to interact instantaneously. As a result, it takes less time to solve problems, report on a variety of job related functions, and access essential data and files remote workers need to be effective in their jobs.
Secure and Maintain Your Network and Data
All of this technology comes with some amazing features and real, tangible benefits that help your company run more efficiently, work more effectively and boost your performance over time. Technology helps you connect with your team and coordinate their work in real-time.
But that connection can be undermined.
From the moment you make the decision to use technology to help your business increase productivity, effectiveness, and results, you are also potentially opening yourself and your company up to a wide variety of mishaps.
And these mishaps go well past misconfiguring the printer. No, we’re talking about viruses, worms, hackers, and even direct attacks on your network designed to gain access to your data, sell it, destroy it, or hold it ransom. There are software issues, connection issues … a whole mess of issues.
That’s why you need a professional managed IT services team like Attain Technology to help you. We can secure your network and data and make sure that even if a hacker does attack you and gets access to your data and deletes it all … your data is safe. It can be restored. Your network can return to order and you can get back to work – quickly.
Part of the benefits of using a managed IT services for construction industry company like Attain Technology is we can help you ensure you are safe and protected, then watch over your network and make sure it stays that way. And the peace of mind that comes from knowing you are protected no matter what happens is invaluable.
Imagine your network going down and not being able to access drawings and blueprints. Or having all of your bids destroyed or corrupted. An event like this can actually cripple your business.
A managed IT service provider can protect you, virtually eliminate the risk of losing your data, and ensure that your business continues to operate regardless of the challenges or issues the technology presents.
More Competitive
Construction industry companies have found that they can use technology to save money, save time, increase profits and work more efficiently.
But there is another major benefit to adopting technology for construction industry companies: it makes you more competitive.
The operational efficiencies you gain through the use of technology allow you to be more accurate in your bidding, eliminate wasted effort, purchase materials more effectively and be much easier to work with.
Your ability to connect to vendors and clients and share information in a secure environment gives you an edge and makes you a preferred partner for future projects.
And, technology gives you the ability to streamline your business processes so you can do more in less time, with less effort. This savings can be passed on to your clients and incorporated into your bidding process. Sometimes, price is an important factor in winning a bid. When you know with certainty what your time, costs and materials will be, you can get aggressive with bidding when you have to.
As you can see, there are a lot of benefits of managed IT services for the construction industry. And Managed IT services are the best way to ensure you have a fully optimized, connected and protected computer network.
If you would like more information on how managed IT services can help your construction business grow by improving productivity through construction industry specific tools, providing customized solutions for your company needs, connecting all of your employees with secure networks and data storage options that make your company more competitive, contact us today at 401-400-0813.
