There’s nothing worse than admitting you were wrong. But what happens when you were wrong 789 times in one week? That’s the danger of inaccurate mechanical and controls parts selection while estimating major construction projects – huge losses can occur in the blink of an eye.
When choosing a solution to maintain accuracy in estimating, a 100% cloud-based CRM like Bidtracer is the way to go. Bidtracer has developed a solution for each of these top challenges that subcontractors face when delivering complex projects:
Scope Creep
Unanticipated changes in project scope can affect time and cost estimates. Subcontractors need to be able to estimate projects and forecast multiple potential scenarios quickly, accurately estimating the same project with different schedules and engineering options without having to manually recalculate the total changes in each proposal. A large contractor could be losing hundreds of billable service hours a day across their workforce due to delivering work that should have been billed separately, or in addition to the current project. Bidtracer generates multiple quotes quickly from the field, within the app in real time, so you’ll never lose track of all those one-off billable hours across your workforce.
Client Revisions
Frequent changes or additions by the client can disrupt initial estimates. Without exercising a change order, contractors are more nimble with a 100% cloud-based CRM like Bidtracer because it can quickly provide alternative scenario reports, automatically generated with a click. The software can change products and schedules in other areas to illustrate where alternatives could still be completed within their original schedule and budget.
Market Fluctuations
Fluctuations in material costs, labor rates, and other expenses can impact estimates, and delays or disruptions in the supply chain can lead to unexpected costs. Having access to real time, in-app pricing from top manufacturers around the globe means saving time by composing estimates from live price lists, instead of static cost estimate resources that could never keep up with the instant accuracy of a manufacturer integrated, cloud-based CRM.
Technical Complexity
Some projects are so massive, so complex, that an entire team of contributors from around the world are collaborating together to provide cost estimates. There is absolutely no way to establish consistency in formatting and data accuracy without an all-in-one CRM that was designed for construction. Many contractors are currently using several different software options for estimating, project management, construction admin, and finance. Sometimes, even another one completely just to compose closeout manuals. By the time it comes to updating their CRM with all this important information, there’s no time or patience left to accurately include it all. When your CRM is the core program behind all these functions, all together in one app, no project is too complex to deliver.
Historical Data Limits
The pain of being a pioneer. When you’re first to market, new or unique projects may lack comparable historical data, making it challenging to predict costs and timelines. The pros at Bidtracer have been developing our construction industry software since WiFi was just five years old, so we can relate. There was a significant lack of historical data due to there being no history of such software providing critical construction engineering and estimating functions on a cloud-based platform. Now that we are nearly 20 years into the software, users are enjoying an incredibly refined and data-rich app that has completed over 11 million digital bid invites.
Environmental and Regulatory Changes
Unless you’re a walking search engine, it is very difficult to accurately keep up with the evolving landscape of environmental and regulatory expenses imposed on contractors in varying political seasons and geographies. Potential costs and delays associated with additional compliance measures can be easily accounted for in Bidtracer, with a one-click proposal generator that makes it easy to illustrate multiple potential outcomes across longer phased projects.
Communication Barriers
Poor communication and misalignment among stakeholders can lead to misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions in the estimation process. Document quality is a major differentiator between you and your competitors, and inadequate or unclear documentation can result in misinterpretation of requirements. Don’t let your projects get lost in translation from the job walk to the war room – rely on a cloud-based CRM that can store photos, video, and client information from the job walk uploaded from any device, in the same software used for estimating and engineering that same project.
Time Constraints
Tight deadlines can force estimators to produce quick and incomplete estimates, nearly always compromising accuracy. With the time saved in each step of the process using Bidtracer, your estimating and engineering team can deliver more accurate and thorough proposals in less time, without having to rush. With more information and less missing data, you won’t ever leave them guessing about how and when the project will be delivered. Being comfortable and clear on the outcome is one of the major reasons clients choose subcontractors. Even with a stacked resume of relevant work, a lack of clarity on project delivery will lose against an overly-prepared team with a strong and responsive infrastructure.
Less wasted time and money, more project wins! Maintain accuracy in estimating complex projects with Bidtracer – get started now and be prepared to kick off FY25 with a strategy to build better projects.
