Builders Have Traditionally Had to Make Do with Technology Applications That Weren't Flexible or Scaleable, and Couldn't Grow with Their Businesses. But No Longer.
John Daley is a man who truly likes to live in a world of color. As project manager for the Green Companies, a production and custom homebuilder based in Sandwich, Mass., he surrounds himself with work-flow charts for the dozens of high-end homes he is building in nearby historic Plymouth. Charts literally cover three full walls of his oversized planning room, each with a myriad of grids and schedules, and all populated with dozens of stick-it colored boxes.
Ask Daly to give you the framing status or customer-walk-through date for any given house, and he can pinpoint the exact week scheduled, on any of several charts. Of course you have to weed through all the color stick-its on each chart, but as long as you're comfortable with the system, it's a quick exercise.
Daly is quick to admit that there should be an easier way to track the work-flow for all the projects he oversees, especially if he isn't at his sales office when he needs the information. But he says he is a visual type of person, and he hasn't yet found the software application that will give him a full house project—or neighborhood—picture easily and quickly.
This is a common problem for builders, and a common complaint of software companies, who say too many homebuilders are still slow to adopt the right technology into their business processes. It also spells huge opportunity for technology companies that can provide hardware and software products that will truly solve the business needs of builders.
"There has been a lot of hesitation to use technology," says Clint Bagley spoksperson for Intuit. "Thirty percent of the builder market is still using DOS-based products. Many builders are still using basic spreadsheet products, or still rely on pen-and-paper methods to track their projects."
Fortunately, software companies have been addressing this disconnect by working on applications that are more user-friendly for homebuilders, include tools for a greater number of tasks, and can be customized to a company's individual needs.
That was the goal behind Intuit's Master Builder software program, which aims to be an "end-to-end solution" for the homebuilder.
"The pain points for builders have been the use of multiple applications that don't communicate with each other, the inability to do reports in down time, as well as the general fear of technology," says Bagley.
Intuit focuses on three core areas for builders with the Master Builder product: job costing, project management and accounting. Master Builder Enterprise allows builders to access their project databases from remote locations, input and manage data, and email reports from the road.
Breaking Down Barriers
Despite the improvements in user-friendly software, however, technology companies still have a challenge with getting past the techno-phobia of many builders. After all, many builders live in a world where change isn't their friend. It's not surprising, when you consider that builders like things to be as orderly, predictable, and standardized as possible.
That hasn't been the case with many software applications targeted to the builder market in the past.
For Daniel Green, one of the principals of The Green Companies, who includes information-technology purchasing among his many duties, the suspicion has been that software vendors have been taking generic business applications, and slapping industry-specific titles in front of them to appear to be full business process solutions.
That has made some builders a bit gun-shy when it comes to trying out new applications, especially anything off-the-shelf.
"I just don't think software will replace some of what we do with planning," Green says. "We tried a couple of different products, but they didn't do everything we needed them to. Neither has been ideal."
Green says his company has had mixed success with its software purchases, but he is desperate to find products that can solve two issues for his builders: punch lists and scheduling. And that is where technology companies can really fill a need.
"Builders want access to information from their suppliers and their housing starts. They want help with handling their supply management. And they want to create operational efficiency," says Andrew Rains, global industrial director, homebuilding, for Peoplesoft.
Rains confirms that a variety of new software tools are being targeted at the homebuilder, especially since the building industry is so hot and builders are trying to manage record numbers of housing starts and development projects.
"We recently held a CIO (chief information officer) forum for the building industry, inviting the CIOs from the top 100 builders. They confirmed that the percentage of homes they are building has doubled in just the last five years," Rains says.
With that sort of growth, investments in technology are not only smart right now, they're essential. The key is to invest in applications that can be easily tailored to your individual business, and will grow with you.
Your software applications should be able to communicate with your other business applications, should be flexible to the needs of various employees within your building company, and should give you detailed and accurate information on the status of, cost of, and profit from each home you start.
You will get the best return on your software investments "by having a platform that is flexible and scalable," Rains says. "You want to be able to manage the complete life cycle as you grow, to help ensure that you are getting the maximum profit on each home you start."