How much is IT really costing your construction business?
As an established business, you probably already have a number of systems in place to help keep track of projects and related data. Chances are, however...
As an established business, you probably already have a number of systems in place to help keep track of projects and related data. Chances are, however...
As an established business, you probably already have a number of systems in place to help keep track of projects and related data. Chances are, however, that your existing platforms may be less than efficient. Worse still, they could be significantly reducing profits through inefficiencies, maintenance and license costs.
Here's how to try and quantify how much your current IT is costing your business.
Duplicated effort
Potentially, the biggest ‘hidden’ cost to your business is where your employees need to duplicate their effort. You should assess your current set-up to identify situations where:
“While there is functionality contained within these tools that can help a small business, growing organisations may find that they quickly grow out of these tools. Organisations that use a set of multiple disparate applications, however, lack this unique advantage of ERP.” – Nick Castellina, ERP and the Small Business.
Lack of mobile support
Many of your staff will spend a significant proportion of their week on site. Ideally they should be able to access and update data while they are in field. If they cannot:
“Poor data quality is wasting £1 in every £6 spent from the average UK departmental budget” - Experian QAS
On site operational costs
Probably one of the easier values to calculate is how much your current management software running overheads. Factors to consider include:
Many of these costs can be reduced by adopting a Cloud-based current construction management software solution to replace several existing packages, or to integrate with them more closely.
Calculating your current IT costs
So to gain a better understanding of your current IT costs you need to:
· Analyse areas of operations where staff are duplicating effort;
· Quantify costs of inaccurate data entry caused by a lack of mobile support;
· Run through all of your current IT running costs.
Are you heading in the right direction?
Work out whether your current construction software is in the right position within your company with the eGuide: ‘The changing place of IT in the construction industry.’