How business intelligence tools can help your construction firm thrive: Part II

Business intelligence (BI) tools are all about melding past, present and future to give you the full picture. For the construction industry in particular, technology means more proactive, targeted decision-making, less cost-eating and higher profits.

This three-part series on BI tools and the construction industry takes a deeper dive into how technology helps you better understand your past, better manage your present and better predict your future. Part I discussed how to better understand your past and use it to create a more successful future. 

But your “today” is equally important.

Better manage your present

What’s working can be a tough question to answer. Allocating resources can be an especially big pain point for construction firms and general contractors. How do you know whether you’re using your resources most effectively? If you aren’t, how do you get there?

The most effective use of resources can deliver big savings, but it can also help alleviate another issue that’s only been getting worse: the lack of talent entering the construction industry. High school students are taught to aim for four-year colleges, and so there are no longer enough people entering into trades to replace those retiring. Competition for workers is fierce. While effective resource use won’t solve the problem, it will help you do more with the team members you do have. 

Looking to attract talent? Read our article on unique ways the construction industry can find, and then retain, team members.

Effective resource management

No matter what types of benefits effective resource use can deliver, a BI tool is the way to get there. It combines factors such as geography, staff expertise, budgets and project timelines to determine where your team members are now, what they’re working on, and where you can deploy them next. 

And we all know how much business development (BD) efforts are informed by capacity awareness. A BI tool can help you figure out when you need to turn up your BD efforts so that you can prevent a situation where team members have finished one project and are waiting around for another.

With visibility into how one project shift or delay might affect the next projects those resources are scheduled for, you can optimize resources and people.

Sounds perfect, right? Technology is essential for making this possible. A BI tool can give you the data visualization you need to see these spikes and resource capacity issues and predict what strategic decision you should make and when. Without good data visualization, it’s hard to interpret the mass of data you have and what your next steps should be.

A BI tool’s easy-to-read dashboards and visualizations allow you to monitor resource capacity and act faster than ever before. With complete customization, you see what’s relevant to your business and even your role. 

Learn more about how business intelligence tools can benefit your organization

Are you ready to dive into which BI tool would work best for your business? Wipfli is deeply experienced in both software selection and implementation, and we’re happy to answer your questions. Contact us to learn more.

And don’t miss part III of this series, where we discuss how BI tools help construction firms create a better future. If you missed part I, click here.