Discover how to get the right IT system for your company to support business growth.
As your business prepares for the economic upturn, attention is turning to how IT can be leveraged to provide a competitive advantage. So what should you be doing when designing the perfect construction management system for your organisation?
Data centralisation
Where is your existing business data stored? Chances are your data is spread across several applications, used by various departments throughout your organisation. Centralising data using a construction management system will help your business by:
- Making information readily available to your entire business for analysis.
- Helping stakeholders make better informed decisions.
- Making the management of data easier for the IT team by reducing the number of systems in use.
- Improving access rights and security to protect intellectual property and commercially sensitive information.
- Allowing you to collect and store more types of data for analysis.
“The average time spent searching for information across all SMEs is 31 minutes. 86% of respondents spend up to two hours. On this basis traditional filing is costing SMEs up to £11,000 per year."
–The Cost of Traditional Filing – YouGov Survey Results. 5 tips to start using data - infographic
Scalable systems
As the economy continues to grow, so will your business data needs. Planning a construction management system that flexes and grows in line with your business will provide a platform for future success. Your ideal solution will:
- Be compliant with relevant legislation and industry standards.
- Use common technologies to reduce administrative overheads.
- Be extensible to provide further expansion opportunities when required in future.
Without scalability, you risk repeating the same problems at some point in the near future.
Business process automation
Your current construction management system probably mirrors your business processes prior to the economic downturn. As businesses have cut back or altered operating procedures to cope with reduced demand or moved into different fields or markets, software no longer works in the way that they do.
If your construction management system cannot be adjusted to reflect these new processes, you will be looking to replace or extend it. To ensure that you get the right system, you will need to:
- Audit your business processes to properly understand what is required.
- Identify manual processes that could be automated to improve efficiency and reduce errors.
- Investigate whether your existing software can be adjusted to meet these new demands.
- Test alternative construction management systems that may better meet your needs now and into the future.
Manual madness of business processes - infographic
Defining your perfect construction management system
Choosing your perfect construction management system is as easy as:
- Selecting a system that centralises as much company data as possible.
- Opting for a solution which can grow with your business.
- Auditing your existing business processes and choosing a solution which can be tailored to offer increased levels of automation.
