One of the biggest areas of improvement needed in construction is data sophistication. With the rise of analytics tools, there has never been a better time to introduce analytics in your organization.

It’s no secret that construction has faced a seemingly never-ending productivity crisis, with the productivity growth rate stuck at around 1% for far too long now. Compared to other economic sectors, this number lags far behind and needs some serious attention.

One of the biggest reasons why construction has struggled to improve productivity is because companies are simply not equipped to understand how they can improve. How did this happen? Simple – it all comes down to tools.

Just like you need the right tools to build things on-site, you need the right digital tools to see things clearly across the organization.

A lot of contractors today still rely on spreadsheets as a tool to organize and capture project data in a digital format. This reliance on the spreadsheet is one of the big culprits behind the industry’s struggle.

Time to be frank: spreadsheets are holding the industry back. We need to stop using them immediately!

So what’s wrong with the spreadsheet? So so much… Here are 3 quick reasons why spreadsheets need to go:

1. Manual data entry

None of the data captured inside a spreadsheet is produced in real-time but is entered manually instead. As a result, you’re always looking at a data snapshot that lags behind the real world. To put into perspective how crazy manual entry is: imagine trying to watch your favourite sports team play but, instead of watching them play live, you’re watching the game a couple of days or even a week after it happened. Brutal!

2. Data silos

Unless you’re a spreadsheet macro guru, there’s a good chance your spreadsheets are housing data in their own little silos. This makes it extremely challenging to ever compare datasets at a higher business level. Good luck stitching everything together!

3. Terrible user experience

Let’s be honest, does anyone ever really enjoy working in a spreadsheet? Why are we forcing ourselves to use the ugliest digital tool imaginable? Yuck, spreadsheets make me depressed just thinking about them. Instead, let’s use much better, well-designed, and modern mobile-friendly tools to update and track data across the field and the office.

Trust me, I could spend all day talking about how spreadsheets hold us back. But I digress.

Let’s switch to the better tool that we should all be using: analytics.

So how can analytics help you? Among the many benefits, analytics can help you:

• Compile much more accurate project bids
• Forecast project issues and risks far in advance
• Predict project outcomes
• Optimize processes
• Budget and plan accurately

If you need more convincing, a simple google search on the benefits of analytics in construction will give you a plethora of reasons why you need to get moving today.

So rather than continuing to walk you through how analytics can help you, I want to give you 3 actionable steps you can take to start rolling out analytics across your organization today:

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