Why Manual Project Searches Are Costing Your Construction Business

On common, a mid-sized contractor sometimes spends 9-14 hours per week on manual searches. Primarily based on nationwide pay averages, a contractor’s totally burdened wage is roughly $60/hour. Over a 12 months, this guide search course of prices $31,000 per worker, per 12 months. This provides as much as over $93,000 yearly for groups of three contractors which is greater than the annual payment for top-tier venture intelligence software program. 

And it’s not nearly {dollars}. Each hour you spend digging for leads is an hour you’re not bidding on new work, following up with shoppers, or managing energetic tasks. You may assume you’re saving cash by sticking to guide strategies, nevertheless it’s truly costing you huge time.

Use this calculator to check how much project search is costing your business.

The Rise of Non-public Tasks

In line with the U.S. Census Bureau, non-public, invitation-only tasks have grown over the previous 5 years and now signify 60% of all business development tasks within the U.S.

That is according to ConstructConnect’s Put-in-Place Construction Forecast Report. Michael Guckes, Chief Economist, reviews, “Non-public sector exercise is anticipated to handily outperform its public sector equal primarily based on forecasted 5-year compounded annual progress charges (CAGR) by means of 2029. The 5-year CAGR for complete non-public development at 4.6% is greater than double that of its public sector equal at 2.0%.”

Contractors who nonetheless rely solely on public knowledge are lacking out on greater than half of immediately’s potential alternatives, particularly in infrastructure projects, which make up a rising share of immediately’s market.

Digital Instruments: Discover Higher Tasks, Quicker

• Earlier than: Looking out throughout SAM.gov, state e-procurement, and different portals to piece collectively public data.
• After: One dashboard with every thing you want, from IIJA-funded federal work to non-public improvement. In ConstructConnect® Project Intelligence, you possibly can filter by commerce, venture class, sector, and extra (see under).

2. Save Time and Keep Forward

Digital instruments lower your weekly venture search time, liberating up contractors to give attention to methods that win bids. Matt Trewet, Mechanical Estimating Supervisor at The Waldinger Company shares his expertise

[ConstructConnect Project Intelligence] has been an enormous timesaver for us. It permits us to answer a number of basic contractors, maintain observe of basic contractors by means of the bid boards.”

As highlighted in Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan, AI-powered infrastructure tasks are rushing up development with sooner permits and less complicated processes. Utilizing digital instruments, contractors can shortly discover and bid on these tasks and keep forward in a fast-changing market. 

3. Make Smarter Enterprise Choices

Knowledge-driven instruments present deeper insights into venture scopes, proprietor histories, and aggressive landscapes. These platforms ship:

• AI danger flags for high-abandonment tasks
• Proprietor histories and low-bid ratios
• Integration with takeoff and estimating instruments

For instance, the PHX-13 project by Aligned Data Centers in Glendale, Arizona, demonstrates how non-public infrastructure tasks are driving progress. The power’s use of renewable power and superior cooling expertise aligns with sustainability traits, making it a invaluable alternative. By leveraging these insights, contractors can give attention to tasks like PHX-13 which have decrease dangers and better probabilities of success.

4. See a True Return on Funding

If a platform eliminates a mean of $31,000 in annual prices for workers conducting searches for a development agency and offers entry to only one extra successful venture, the funding in expertise pays for itself a number of occasions over. In comparison with the hidden price of inefficiency and missed alternatives, the selection is obvious.

Obtain our free information, The Contractor’s Guide to Finding Better Projects, Faster, to learn the way digital instruments can remodel your venture discovery course of.