Investment - Making the right technology decision has a range of impacts - Software licensing, Implementation Time, Training Requirements, Deployment Costs. Weighing up these requirements and the quality of delivery can have unforeseen expenses - in short, you need to make the right decision for the next 5-7 years.
Lets’ use email as an example. Everyone in business for the past 10 years has seen the evolution of email. We went from an installed Microsoft XP (POP) email, to Email Exchange via business server to Office 365 or Gmail. Very few would put up with not having emails sync from computer to mobile phone today.
So why are so many contractors using estimating software in isolation?
Collaboration - Current software in now able to develop and deploy rapidly. Cloud computing has become the norm for many business tools.
What demonstrates the advantages of collaborative estimating software today?
De-Risking Your Estimates - For so many contractors today, estimators working independently is standard practice – often receiving little to no support from their colleagues. This means senior team members cannot easily provide feedback, while at the same time valuable historical price information is difficult to access.
Often working with multiple estimating tools, estimators spend valuable estimating time transposing and collating estimate information. This leads to inaccurate cost data compounding the effect of isolated estimating practices.
Choosing the Right Estimating Platform - Bluntly, installed construction software is outdated and should only be considered when specific requirements are not available in cloud competitors. Knowing the difference between Hosting Services and SaaS is an important distinction when evaluating cloud estimating software.
Most importantly, evaluate the true cost of licensing – per user or unlimited, functions or models available within the licensing selection (monthly or annual),