As companies grow, they often experience rapid expansion that doesn’t allow time for strategic growth of processes within the organization. This can be true in any industry, especially within construction where initial employees are often more focused on performing their trade than on structuring business operations.
This is as it should be, of course – contractors as well as suppliers and manufacturers are able to grow precisely because of their skill in the field and expertise with materials.
But, once you’ve reached a certain size, you might find that your preconstruction team is operating less efficiently than they could be. While this problem is relatively common, it can mean big issues for your business if you don’t take steps to streamline those critical processes.
That’s the bad news. The good news is it’s easily solvable with the right software integration.
Does Your Bidding Process Hinge on Individuals?
If your bid process involves individual estimators receiving invitations to bid directly, what happens when someone is out of the office, behind on their work, or simply forgets to do a takeoff until it’s too late?
Even if your team meets regularly to prioritize bid opportunities, ITBs can fall through the cracks if only one estimator is aware of them.
When others do step in to help, it can leave the team scrambling to figure out what, if any, work has already been done, where the necessary documents and plans are, and what communication has already occurred with the customer contact.
If your company’s workflow resembles this at all, there’s a better, more efficient way that can give you back valuable time and clearer access to data, such as bidding automation.
Gain Transparency and a Smoother Workflow with a STACK Integration
If it never occurred to you that your process could be different, you’re not alone. So many companies go with the status quo because that’s the way it’s always been. But once you integrate a solution like STACK into your workflow, you’ll be amazed at how much easier things are – and how much better than your competitors you’ve just become.
How an Integration Works
With your team of developers, you’ll use STACK’s open API to connect your existing systems (CRM, accounting software) to STACK so the platforms can send data seamlessly among them. Then, the magic happens.
Your New and Improved Workflow
Now, with your technology stack streamlined, you’re ready to assign bids easily.
1. When a job comes in, all stakeholders and departments can be notified with an automated task – and projects can be easily reassigned as needed.
2. Estimators for any division can evaluate parts of the project relevant to them; they can perform takeoffs, generate quotes and contracts, all at the same time, within STACK, with no need to wait for other departments to complete their work.
3. Automations can be triggered for department heads at any step of the process, and all data collected in STACK can then be used for financial analysis later, for detailed project reviews.
That’s it – no more workflows dependent on a single person in which others can’t get the information they need in a timely manner and are rushed at the end of the process. No more lack of communication among teams and systems. No more lost data, and no more guesswork.
Your team will save hours – often days – of work by connecting tools used throughout your preconstruction workflow, and your business can become much more efficient and accurate when you get back that time for critical thinking and analysis of historical data.
Imagining what you could do with this kind of extra time and space for strategy and planning? Schedule a demo with STACK today and ask about our integration capabilities.
