The construction business has already converged with the growing number of industries undergoing digital transformation with the goal of adapting to the evolving landscape, but Procore Asia vice president Bruce Wells sees a mismatch of expectations since construction technology is designed by movers in the technology space, not in the construction scenes.
Construction management software provider Procore Technologies aims to bridge the gap of what construction firms actually need from their technology, and what their technology is able to provide. The company’s core goals is built on the intersection of construction and technology, and its answer is to assimilate all individuals, systems, and data under a single platform to maximize the benefits from construction technology.
Based on the firm’s latest construction industry benchmark report entitled ‘How We Build Now 2022 – Tracking technology in Asia Pacific Construction in 2022,’ the majority of Filipino construction decision makers increased their digital investments during the last 24 months, driven by a growing need to overcome industry challenges with technological capabilities.
One example of how companies are leveraging on technology is the cloud-based Common Data Environment (CDE) and reality capture tools introduced by construction company EEI Corporation that makes way for remote monitoring of job sites.
“As a cloud-based software provider created by construction professionals for construction professionals, Procore is rooted and solely dedicated to the advancement of the industry. Procore understands the pain points that the industry faces, and we build solutions to directly address them,” he explained.
Aside from gauging the digital maturity and adoption of construction technologies by the industry, Procore’s study also explores the general sentiment of decision makers in the space, as well as the common pain points and opportunities they encounter.
More than half (58%) of the 1,100 respondents across five markets in Asia Pacific consider the increasing cost of raw materials and equipment as the primary challenge of the industry, followed by ensuring the safety of workers (44%), and increasing their productivity (40%).
At home, while two in three (65%) construction company c-suite executives reported a spike in digital investments as more of them recognize the benefits of construction technology, established behaviors (44%) and data security concerns (43%) are still the biggest concerns businesses who expect challenges in their journey of digital transformation.
Despite this outlook, 98% of respondents hailing from the Philippines are confident that the industry as a whole will be able to bounce back over the next 12 months, with the majority seeing a potential rise in the number and value of these potential projects.
“It is imperative for construction businesses to digitalize the way they manage data, to unlock actionable insights that improve productivity and ultimately, the business bottom-line. At Procore, we understand that data is the key to the future of construction,” Wells remarked.
Currently, Procore offers tender management and estimating for the preconstruction phase, project management, quality and safety monitoring, design coordination, building information modeling (BIM), budget and invoice tracking, and analytics.
“Through our integrated platform, we enable smarter construction by providing real-time visibility and insight into all aspects of project performance, so that construction businesses can benefit from a better control of their projects and deliver higher quality builds,” he added.
In the next three years, Philippine construction firms are eyeing to launch next generation BIM services (65%), pre-fabrication (63%), and robotics (61%). More than half the respondents are keen on using modern technologies like AI and machine learning (59%), extended reality (58%), and big data (55%).
Based on the company’s Q2 earnings call, Procore is also now looking into addressing the payment gaps in the material procurement process, building on the payment and lien process management technology it gained from Levelset through an acquisition in 2021. This signals Procore’s entry into the fintech space moving forward.
