The Covid pandemic forced us to work remotely more than ever and communicate better at a distance. It challenged us to look for solutions which help keep teams joined up and effective. Construction teams have historically worked fairly independently but Covid made us question whether there could be a better way. Savvy building firm owners realise the importance of connectivity in construction. They’re looking for a way to run their building projects effectively, using technologies that have benefitted other industries for some time.
When we exited the pandemic, UK builders were run off their feet with new work. That’s got to be a good thing, right? It turns out that not everyone actually benefitted from this post-pandemic boom. Why? The industry is running hot. Everyone is busy, frenzied even, and losing money they should have made. Organising multiple trades and getting the required materials on site has always been a challenge, made worse by juggling many projects simultaneously. A juggle that slowly eats away at profits. The unfortunate reality is that profit isn’t made just in quoting well and building in a nice profit margin. Profit’s also made in the management of the job. By getting organised and sticking to the build program, you can retain more of your projected profits.
One way to get organised is to adopt job management tools and technologies, designed specifically for construction, which help you streamline your operation and reduce the admin. Or as we like to say here at HBXL Building Software, help you ‘cut the crap’.
A cloud-based job management software tool is more than an App. It’s a way of doing business. BuildProjex provides a platform to manage your projects effectively, doing away with pen and paper and even the many channels of communication such as SMS, WhatsApp and email, which bomb us all daily. Instead it brings all your project communications, files and management such as Gantt charts and project calendar into one secure place.
Connecting up your teams and documentation is a smart choice for today’s builder. Builders using BuildProjex report that it saves them time, helps them resolve issues quickly and helps them deliver projects on track.
Have you ever considered the vast amounts of project data generated throughout a jobs life cycle that you have to manage? It’s mind boggling – and normally you carry all that in your head or in different systems. By the end of a project you could have got through countless scribbled to do lists, tens if not hundreds of documents including planning drawings, working drawings, samples, quotations and specifications. Not to mention a project messaging archive of hundreds if not thousands of messages across the team.
The easy-to-use task management features help you kick butt. Create and assign tasks to everyone and keep track of progress. At a glance you’ll see what’s complete, what’s coming up and what’s overdue now.
Each team member has their own log in so they’ll see their own to do list. Personalising your team’s experience, reminding them of what they need to do each day keeps them focused on the project’s end game.
And that includes clients! Assign to-dos/decisions to be made by your customers and automatic reminder notifications will be pinged for upcoming and overdue tasks.
Save project data (files/images etc.) to the project’s folder on BuildProjex and everyone has access to the latest documents. Use the in-built instant messaging and file commenting, and all responses and requests are channelled together in one place. There’s really no excuse for use of out of date files. Everyone’s on the same page.
The on-board, shared Gantt chart of your build program keeps everyone up to speed on the plan and progress. You can also track actual versus target progress. As changes are made to the program, it cascades to everyone on the project. There’s also a shared Calendar so important meetings and decision points can be scheduled and communicated to whomever is invited.
Importantly, you and your BuildProjex ‘system admin’ have the overview of everything so you can see everything that’s going on across all your projects at any time.
One thing we’ve not mentioned is that with BuildProjex your client gets a unique view on the project. Personalising your client’s experience will help you develop a better connection to your client through the various stages of the building project journey. Customers often complain most about builders’ lack of communication and the quality of that communication when they get it. Imagine inviting your new prospect to their own ‘BuildProjex’ project dashboard? You’ll be on to a winner before you even send the customer their quotation! Furthermore, surpassing your clients expectations can sometimes lead to extended scopes of work or a return in the future for more work.
Being able to check in, link up with your team, your subbies and your clients in separate locations is all part of a slick, profitable operation. It’s also a vital part of competitor differentiation.
As part of the award-winning HBXL Building Software suite of software tools for builders, the new BuildProjex will very quickly become the best-rated UK job management software app for building firms out there.
You can try free now.