In the world of sports, just remaining competitive (let alone being the best in a particular field) requires several areas of focus. One of which is the continuous evaluation of…

As IT leaders, if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be more agile as an IT organization. The construction technology landscape is constantly changing in terms of the applications in use, how they are deployed, and the needs of the end-users. We must adapt and take lessons from other industries to allow IT to become more flexible to meet demand. There are multiple articles and books on implementing agile methodologies that provide the “how-to” knowledge. For this piece, we want to focus on two areas, one that requires a fundamental shift in IT thinking: the transition from “operators” to “managers”. The other is the adoption of a repeatable framework for becoming more agile.

Managers are required because more of their time is spent overseeing and working with a broader range of vendors which requires a different skillset and potentially some retraining. The adoption of a repeatable framework for strategy identification through execution is required in order to meet in the increasing demands for faster decision making and reaching a return on investment (ROI).

Future of ERP

There are two aspects of ERP that make that solution among the stickiest in the industry (meaning least likely to be changed out); cost and disruption. Said another way, both relate to the difficulty in implementing the types of systems. In my 30 years within the industry, I have yet to hear a controller or CFO express delight in the prospect of another ERP deployment. Even so, a significant number of people evaluate the ERP marketplace each year with a view to better automating their accounting and operational functions. This seemingly benign process can bring its own cost, frustration, and risks. Certainly, making the wrong decision can be costly in terms of investment and personnel time to not meet the organization’s expectations. This topic could easily fill two or three newsletters. However, for those considering their options, the focus here is only on the most significant developments that are in the ERP space for contractors.

In no particular order, these developments include a lack of support for manufacturing/fabrication functions, sufficient project management functionality, an open architecture for integrating with other applications and publishing tools that provide a higher level of capability than typical report writing.