5 Ways Construction Leaders Can Use Data as A Competitive Advantage

Chapter 1

Why Data Holds the Key to Opening Doors to Opportunity

Construction leaders across Southeast Asia recognise they must transform their businesses – and that data holds the key to that transformation. But How We Build Now suggests many don’t know where to start.

Hesitancy is a reasonable response to change when teams are focused on getting through the challenges of each day.

But How We Build Now shows a growing cohort of construction leaders with one eye on today’s challenges and another firmly fixed on the future.

In fact, Southeast Asia construction professionals who responded to Procore’s research unanimously agreed (99%) that better data management could bring benefits to their businesses.

To learn how some of these leaders are managing today’s volatile market and stepping into the future with confidence, we listed 5 ways that data can be used as a business advantage.

Chapter 2

Start Small for Big Impact

How We Build Now suggests that construction decision-makers have digitalisation and data aspirations but are worried about the change management required to turn ambition into action.

Just 6% of companies in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore have laid a fundamental foundation with a data strategy. However, there is a strong appetite (77%) among Southeast Asian businesses to plan, design and implement a data strategy over the next 12 months.

Worryingly, 52% are not confident or only “somewhat confident” that their strategy will be successful.

Leaders who champion digital transformation can find technology is the pivot point for business transformation.

Makati Development Corporation, headquartered in the Philippines, has an 8,000-strong team and hundreds of projects underway at any one time. Before switching to Procore, MDC was reliant on a system of Excel spreadsheets, with drawings and documentation updated and printed for each stakeholder. Version control was a headache and documentation hard to track down.

"We initially implemented Procore to assist with a single project,” says Marty Martin, MDC’s Head of Operations Digital Transformation. “The moment we realised it could harness data from across the company, we knew we had the enterprise-wide construction management platform we were looking for. After that, it quickly rolled out across hundreds of our projects.”

Chapter 3

Create a Single Source of Truth

Nearly half (48%) of Southeast Asian respondents to How We Build Now said improving access to project information was their top strategy to boost productivity – and exactly 50% said it was the secret to greater profitability.

Construction sites are awash with information. But the high volume of paper documents, PDFs and knowledge walking around in people’s heads often gets lost as projects move from procurement to planning, and from pre-construction to the construction phase.

With Procore, Unispace has turned its data silos into decision-making sources. Unispace’s 700-plus people work on projects around the Asia Pacific – and they rely on Procore for data to support fast, accurate and timely decisions from the moment the last set of drawings are submitted for final pricing all the way to issuing orders and subcontracts.

As Unispace’s Commercial Director Kevin McCabe notes: “No more hunting for documents on the server or emails on people’s phones. Everything is centralised. Training our team is a quick and simple process as Procore is intuitive and can be followed with minimal or even no training.”

Chapter 4

Shrink Rework to Grow Margins

“Do it again,” is the phrase that no one in construction wants to hear, but few avoid. Rework affects schedules, reputations and, of course, bottom lines.

How We Build Now reveals that an eye watering 1 in 5 project hours in Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines are spent on rework.

Southeast Asian respondents estimated that 22% of total spending on projects, on average, could be saved with more efficient data management.

Many defects are unobserved until it is far too late, but Procore’s Defect tool provides the framework for businesses to meet and exceed quality and safety benchmarks.

Even simple data capture and reporting can help companies to get greater visibility into areas of potential risk and reward.

Malaysia's Sime Darby Property has a footprint extending across the Asia Pacific and the United Kingdom. The company’s digital transformation was driven by a commitment to quality assurance and a desire to create a common data environment.

Today, all Sime Darby Property’s designs and post-construction defect records are stored on Procore’s construction management platform. Analysis of all defects allows the team to spot common pitfalls, implement strategies to address repetitive issues and, ultimately, avoid unnecessary rework.

When Sime Darby Property first rolled out Procore, the team saved 12 months on its program. “Procore’s helped to save our time – time to deliver, time to construct, time to start work,” shares Stevensan Innasimuthu, the company’s General Manager of Digital Transformation and Information Technology. “It saves a lot in our opportunity costs, staff costs, investors costs, delivery costs, financial costs and revenue recognition is faster now.”

Chapter 5

Create a Collaborative Platform

“Collaboration” describes the series of benefits that arise when information is shared on a single source of truth: efficiency, conflict and clash resolution, real-time reporting and more.

Working collaboratively can lead to a higher quality data set that, in turn, can inform better future decisions. In contrast, back-and-forth trading of paper-based requests for information and contractor emails can open the door to miscommunication – and with it, time delays and errors.

Many of our survey respondents agree, with 57% of Singaporean construction leaders looking to embrace greater collaboration among project stakeholders, as well as 54% of Malaysian and 60% of Filipino counterparts.

Communicating through Procore via photo documentation, RFIs, quality and safety audits saves time, and that’s where we see the greatest value.”

Chapter 6

Rethink Systems to Secure Cash Flow

Maintaining cash flow keeps half the region’s business leaders up at night – and How We Build Now reveals an industry rethinking the way it manages everything from contracting to payments.

Construction leaders across the region are re-examining their contracting models to protect margins (39%). Furthermore, 37% are considering the possibility of trading margin for advance payments and secure cash flow. These are proof points of progressive companies that are re-evaluating their practices to secure cash flow and finding new sources of competitive advantage.

This was certainly true for Makati Development Corporation (MDC), one of the Philippines largest construction companies. Marty Martin, Head of Operations Digital Transformation, says Procore helped MDC implement an “innovation roadmap”. “We have hundreds of projects underway at any one time and being able to record and analyse the data digitally differentiates us against construction companies still relying on paper,” he says.

Procore Technologies’ Head of Region, Tom Karemacher, says How We Build Now presents a clear case for change. "Preparing for the future and being able to pivot quickly requires access to real-time insights. Businesses must begin to lay the foundations today. Grounding decisions in data, rather than gut feel, adds predictability to every project – and the payback will be immediate.” Take a look at the full report.