James Benham, President, and CEO of JBKnowledge Inc. will be presenting at CFMA’s annual conference today at 11:00 am. Benham will discuss real technology and software that is changing the way businesses operate at all stages of a construction project, from contracts through payment. Benham will also explain JBKnowledge’s 2014 Construction Technology (CT) survey. To prepare you for his talk, we put together a brief explanation of the 56-page report below. (Read the Full JBKnowledge 2014 Construction Technology Forecast Here.)
Unless otherwise attributed, any quotation in this post was pulled directly from the report.
Why The Survey of Construction Software?
In the report’s forward, James Benham explains how the report came about
I’ll repeat my favorite quote from a client: ‘I got into construction decades ago because you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist, only to find out that now, you have to be a rocket scientist to be in construction.’ Many of you started in this industry because it was two guys and a hammer and you were ready to get dirty – skepticism towards emerging technology is common among this generation. Now, an increasing number of our industry is young and tech savvy, with more social media profiles in their tool box than actual tools. I’m here to say we need both of these demographics equally, and this report reveals why.
While the report is an overview of general software usage in the construction industry, it is particularly relevant for the subject of this blog: construction payment.
The construction payment process is riddled with risk, and it’s the most expensive type of risk: financial risk. New solutions are launched routinely by companies aimed to improve and optimize this process…ultimately, to help get money in and out of the door, and to mitigate any legal and financial exposures along the way.
What is great about the technology survey is that it evaluates how cloud technology is changing the complexion of software products used by construction industry participants. As this relates to accounting software and the construction payment process, we wrote a relevant article in Construction Executive’s Tech Trends here: Extend Functionality of Accounting Products with Cloud Technology & APIs.
About the Survey – What Topics Are Covered
2014 marked the third annual edition of JBKnowledge’s survey, issued in conjunction with CFMA and the Texas A&M University Department of Construction Science. The survey included 1,028 respondents and 40 questions.
Topics include:
- IT Departments
- Cloud Security
- Mobile Technology
- Emerging Technology
- Software in Use
Here is a sampling of questions from the survey:
- What technology solutions and devices are industry professionals relying on in each stage of the construction process?
- How are companies allocating IT staff and budgets to meet evolving technology needs?
- Are builders taking advantage of developments in data integration and mobility?
- Are data security policies and employee training keeping up with the new technology being implemented?
- With what new technologies (i.e., wearables and augmented reality) are builders experimenting?
The JBKnowledge Report is highly valuable to construction executives evaluating their technology plans to not only better understand how they stack up against other market participants, but also to understand the overall direction of technology in the industry. Get your copy of the report here.