What do Construction Management Firms and Facilities Owners Want from Technology?

A recent study by softwareadvice.com on the “Impact of Job Roles on Construction Software Purchasing Decisions,” has shed new light on the technology requirements and attitudes of the buyers of construction software. 

The ability of Bentley's EADOC to provide cloud-based collaboration across a capital project’s entire team—with integrated cost controls, document management and risk management—makes it well-positioned to solve the problems of construction managers and facility owners now and into the future. Let's look at the data:

Key Findings:

1. Beyond improving accuracy and organization, business owners most frequently cited company growth (24%) as their top reason for seeking new software.

 2. Project managers most frequently cited their desire for either an all-in-one suite or improved integration between best-of-breed applications (35%).

3. Among respondents with a deployment preference, 70% of owners preferred on-premise, while 72% of project managers preferred web-based.

4. The majority of IT managers (54 percent) cited outdated and inadequate software as their top reason for purchasing a new system.

Since the study surveyed a wide range of construction software user types, we asked the study's author if they could shed light specifically on the attitudes of construction management firms and facility owners—which make up the bulk of EADOC users.

  • How important is allowing the entire project team to collaborate through web-access, ease-of-use, scalability?

Absolutely critical. The cloud revolutionized project management, and now more than ever is it possible for teams to easily collaborate on complex projects that have many moving parts. In some ways, it's sort of incredible to think about how construction projects were traditionally managed prior to the advent of specialized construction project management software.

  • How important is reducing manual or duplicated data entry?

I've heard many new users of construction software say that the amount of time they spend doing manual data entry is often easily slashed in half if not more. That alone is one of the most significant ROIs you can get from good construction software.

  • How about integration with other solutions and proprietary file types, like Microsoft Project and Primavera 6?

The ability to integrate with other platforms is also quite important. It all goes back to reducing data entry and streamlining documents—these little things can add up when you're trying to harmonize all of your processes.

The Future

Although the study did not touch specifically on the ability of software systems to produce an electronic audit trail of all project documents and communications, or the ability to reduce the need for printing/shipping physical documents, we know from our past nine years of product development that these features are also very popular among our construction manager and facility owner users.