13

Jan

2021

Construction is the largest industry in the world, representing 13% of global GDP. This makes perfect sense when you think that the largest purchase most of us will ever make is our home. In theory, due to its size, the industry should be extraordinarily efficient; in practice, anybody who’s worked with a home builder or contractor can describe a multitude of areas where it’s not.

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John Kyne, Prockure.

Aside from BIM, which involves creating a digital representation of a built space, there’s been very little software innovation in the sector amongst building contractors and home builders over the past two decades. On a global level, the reason behind this is simple: construction companies allocate the lowest IT budgets, as a percentage of their revenue giving a measly 1.5% per annum, which is less than half the average across all other sectors according to Deloitte.

Low Construction Penetration

When it comes to investment and innovation, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. This is reflected at a domestic level too in the Central Statistics Office’s most recent Information Society Enterprise study which shows that only 2% of purchases in construction are made through e-Commerce, as opposed to a 36% average across all other sectors.

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With the sector’s low margins and volatile nature, both on international and domestic levels, it’s somewhat understandable that building contractors and home builders haven’t invested in software in the past. It can sometimes be hard justifying the typical large six-figure outlays on something unproven when you could go out of business before seeing any return on it. This attitude towards technology creates a vicious cycle though, whereby the industry’s inability to get more productive leaves it more vulnerable to economic shocks, and when those downturns start to bite, it’s less able to weather them.

So, when the risks are high and the margins low, the most obvious way of improving the sector is for it to become more productive, and the easiest and most logical way of doing this is by investing in technology. While much of the current focus in construction software is on BIM, it’s not a panacea because of the high up-front software licensing and training costs. At Prockure, we believe that there’s much lower-hanging fruit to be picked by digitising the supply chain and that the first step towards improving this process is for a builder to introduce online material ordering to their company.

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Prockure’s mission is to help the construction industry reach the productivity levels of a technology company, and Prockure believes the first step to achieving this is to digitise the material ordering process. Those doing the buying onsite probably use e-Commerce to buy concert tickets or book a flight, and there’s no logical reason why the same shouldn’t be happening when they’re ordering electrical cable or timber from a local builders’ merchant.

Contact Prockure Today

If you’re involved with a contractor or home builder and would like to use e-Commerce to order building materials which integrates with your Accounting or ERP system without any up-front costs, check out the Prockure website or arrange a chat with us today.

Phone: +353 1 443 4506 | +353 85 124 6257

Email: john@prockure.com

 Website: www.prockure.com

Location: 106, 35-38 Mountjoy Square South, Dublin 1, D01 V3V5

SCSI