Moving into the digital age has created efficiencies for most construction organizations. While it is definitely a boon to the overall industry, it can make it more difficult for individual organizations to find their own source of competitive advantage through efficiency. Scores of construction specific tools, software, and apps have flooded the market and it can be difficult to find what will truly give you the opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Instead of canvassing the entire construction technology landscape to search for the right product for your organization and talking to sales people – (who coincidently all seem to say that while their product isn’t a perfect fit for every organization, guess what, it is perfect for yours!) – it can be of great benefit to take a quick internal evaluation of what will help make your company more efficient. One of the areas where almost any organization can do a little self-audit and find improvement is within their preconstruction and bid management processes.
Three Ways to Find Efficiency in Your Bidding Process
Be Quick About It While Preserving Quality
Not too long ago, the bid management process was a painstaking and lengthy process that could take up countless hours. Now, even with the most basic tools and freeware, that same process can be done in a fraction of the time and at just as high of quality as before. Being able to put out quality bids quickly provides you the ability to bid more jobs and focus on the important bids your already have out. Efficiency comes from maximizing opportunities.
Get More Bid Responses
One of the most frustrating aspects of the bidding process, as any estimator can attest, is getting responses from subcontractors, it’s like pulling teeth! Oftentimes the issue is that subcontractors are trying to maximize their opportunities just like you.
In the process they end up signing up for every lead notification system available and are abjectly flooded with projects to bid on, and in most cases these lead services have a normalizing effect so that every General Contractors bid invite looks the same. The best way to combat this is to make your bid invite stand out from the crowd. Look for a bidding tool that gives you the opportunity to truly customize your ITB’s.
Make it Easy for Subcontractors
In our survey of subcontractors, we found that a majority of subcontractors noted that ease of use was a primary concern when adopting new technology. It’s not the case that subcontractors don’t know how to use computers or technology, oftentimes it’s that they are extremely busy and don’t have the time to deal with cumbersome systems. Make it easy for them. Use collaboration software that has an intuitive interface and makes it extremely easy for a new user to know exactly what they need to do.
So before you decide to take a look at every software system on the market or jump in feet first with one of the “one size fits all solutions”, perform an internal audit of your bidding process than look for a system that can help provide exactly what your organization needs.
