By Grace DonnellyBrandon Oliveri-O’Connor is Senior Director of EMEA at Procore, and Rob Frank is Customer Experience Director at BW: Workplace Experts – one of Procore’s customers. As part of our DCW Connect fringe series, together they’ll be joining a panel discussion Visibility of performance: The building blocks for smarter construction along with Stephanie Whittaker (BAM Construct UK & ENCORD) and Brid Mullane (Conack Construction) at 10am on Thursday 13 May.
We caught up with them ahead of the webinar to find out why visibility of performance is important for construction companies and how we can use data insights to us improve.
How do you define visibility of performance and why should construction companies be more focused on it?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor, Senior Director of EMEA, Procore: “Visibility of performance is ultimately the ability to access and use real-time insights to gain an overview of an entire construction life cycle as well as overall business performance and/or that of a project.
“With construction companies and their projects producing mountains of data and insights just waiting to be used, the industry must become more focused on the visibility of performance as only then can more informed decisions be made. Real-time insights are crucial to success, but we see a lot of construction companies face challenges with the accuracy of their data, its recency and the how much context of the full project it provides. For instance, when these have been achieved, such data can show how many days a particular trade takes to resolve snags and help project managers identify the best partners to work with in order to maximise profits—helping to deliver the best quality of work and avoid delays. In fact, our recently commissioned survey found that 49% of managers with visibility of performance in the UK and Ireland have been able to deliver higher quality projects with fewer defects.”
Can you share an example of what you would class as real-time insights and how can they help improve efficiency and productivity?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor: “Practically speaking, for many Procore customers, this begins as a dashboard that displays the status of different areas of a project in a red-amber-green visualisation. The dashboard is updated in real-time using the information that people on-site are inputting into the Procore system as part of their day-to-day job such as RFIs or snag lists. However, this often progresses to much more advanced uses of data that looks beyond the immediate performance of a project. Using insights to inform future decision making in-line with broader business goals can inform which contractors are chosen for upcoming projects and how to optimise working on future projects for increased efficiency. The short-term benefits of these uses can be directly time saved and more recent data (i.e. performance) being reviewed, but the long term benefits range anywhere from fewer defects in a project to achieving better compliance with standards such as ISO 9001. Having all of this via a single-platform empowers companies and individuals to develop and improve areas of practice.”
What does a strategy for improving performance visibility look like?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor: “Embracing change is the first step to improving performance visibility and transitioning to more modern technologies and collecting data is vital for this. For the transition to be effective, the data must be collected accurately, be representative of real-time performance (not that of a month ago) and have high validity. This can all be achieved by being equipped with tools that allow workers to collect and view previous data while on-site, at any moment and all in one single platform. This allows companies to be agile in their data collection approach and gain access to the valuable information exactly when they need it, removing many of the barriers that have existed previously.
Data collection is an important first step but only part of the picture. To ensure performance visibility is maximised, the wider business context must also be considered. Establishing a comprehensive business strategy that incorporates and is informed by data will result in a much more accurate plan for how to win in the market. This requires identification for which data metrics will be measured and which other technologies will be layered to cover all areas of the business operation. Technology should not be considered as a silver bullet for good performance, but once the fundamentals are in place, incorporating the likes of artificial intelligence and machine learning can catapult a business to the next level of success.”
Rob Frank, Customer Experience Director, BW: Workplace Experts: “At BW: Workplace Experts, the first factor is knowing what your goals and objectives are as a company, then measure the things that affect this. Measurement needs to be consistent across all levels of the business, from a project and functions perspective. For us, it’s important for the measurement to be relevant to the business strategy which ultimately aligns with client needs. People then know that their performance measures are real and contribute to the business attaining its strategic goals. We recognise and celebrate these achievements, they illustrate the relevance and reinforce what’s important, creating value.”
One of the issues raised by the research is linked to construction companies’ ability to extract value rather than simply capturing insights. Why is this, how can companies adapt to better make use of the insights they’re gaining?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor: “Collecting data is just the first step in the process. For companies to start actually seeing value from their data is much more difficult. Transitioning from the collection to value stage is something many struggle with because they aren’t equipped with the right tools to make the data accessible to the people who need it most. By incorporating technologies that organise, display and provide access to the data, the companies gain better insight into their performance data. The second aspect of this is the quality of data. That is, if the data being collected is low quality (e.g. inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated), the insights will be too. The need for high-quality data and the access to it to achieve the highest level of visibility of performance is crucial to all kinds of construction business – whether it’s a small local housebuilder or a large multinational.“
Rob Frank: “By linking all of the data we collect to measure performance, and ultimately our business strategy, we are able to hold ourselves accountable. Having clear transparency of the data collected means that we can respond quickly, across all areas of the business. If we see something not working, we are able to quickly pivot and change. We aren’t measuring anything just for the sake of measuring it, so it’s important to put politics to one side and demonstrate how the data collection is simple and relevant.”
Two thirds of those surveyed suggested they’re still using outdated tools. Why is this, what should companies be doing differently?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor: “The traditional persona of slow digital adoption that the construction industry has been branded with is changing. In order to encourage the adoption of new technologies, companies are adopting a positive digital-first culture. This is being done by rolling out new technologies, but staggering their adoption, by for example, starting on a single project in order to build a use-case and success story which can then be communicated to the wider business to display the benefits and encourage further adoption. In fact, we find that for every single one of our clients, there exists what we like to call ‘digital champions’. Finding these people within an organisation and getting them on board will help to fast-track the adoption of wider teams and help to progress the digitisation of the business.”
The survey also suggested that many are being met with incomplete, inaccurate and duplicated insights. Again why is this and what should companies be doing to rectify the problem?
Brandon Oliveri-O’Connor: “First and foremost, insights are only as good as the data being collected. A lot of this stems from data collection being difficult, convoluted and not designed with the user in mind. Having a single-platform approach that allows for easy, accurate and quick data collection will instantly improve the quality of the insights at the other end. One solution Procore offers is the ability to enable workers on-site to review, report, collect and share data relevant to the project at hand. This can be done easily on a phone or tablet, removing the process of having to travel from site to office and creating several copies of the same information to then log into a system. By allowing everyone to have access to all information and insights generated from any location when they need it, the data will be first-hand and up-to-date, without incomplete or inaccurate data or insights.”
Rob Frank: “Keeping things simple and stripping out any ambiguity, in both the collection and processing of insights, goes a long way in making the end result more accurate, and in turn, more valuable. Ensuring we are mature with the data and insights is also important, Knee-jerk reactions can be poisonous. We know that we are very unlikely to find a silver bullet that will solve everything. Instead, it’s the regular simple improvements in small areas, which might seem insignificant, but over time amount to large scale change.”
Don’t miss Brandon and Rob at DCW Connect fringe series 2021
You can hear Brandon and Rob speak in the panel discussion Visibility of performance: The building blocks for smarter construction at 10am on Thursday 13 May.
In this webinar chaired by Stephanie Whittaker, Senior Marketing & Communications Manager, BAM Construct UK & Work Group Lead for Foresighting, ENCORD, we’ll hear from a panel of industry peers including Brandon, Rob and Brid Mullane, CDE Administrative Manager, Conack Construction. They’ll share how they have transformed their businesses through better data insights and gained greater visibility of performance.