Choosing the right solution - give tech a chance!

So you are in construction, and you have decided to give tech a go. Welcome to the minority - but you are my hero ;-)

Choosing the right solution is the next big decision. If you search for 'project management software' you will see a huge 1.9 billion results, try 'construction project management software' and that list becomes a much more manageable 653 million.... but seriously, where do you start?

The generic solutions

Don't be tempted by the ads at the top. These are usually very broad, they spend millions on marketing to ensure they seem relevant to you and your needs - Monday.com is one of the worlds most popular team management systems there is. And I am not denying that they offer some truly awesome software starting at just £7 per month per user. But it's not designed for construction. It doesn't offer revision control of your documents, doesn't have a great RFI solution, and doesn't work offline. As your business scales, those £7 per month fees soon mount up, unless you decide to keep the platform entirely internal, but then that defeats the point of collaboration software.

The next most popular choice is dropbox - which is fine for internal sharing of documents, but not much else. As soon as you need to invite external parties to the platform, the permission system and audit history seem to be severely lacking. Even then, dropbox will require other apps to offer a full project management system.

A real construction focused project management system

If you decide that a dedicated construction system is the best solution (and it is) you need to make sure it offers all the functionality you need and has the support and extra features you need to make the most it. Older platforms didn't have stay competitive, and they know that once you sign a client up, it's hard to move, and some have taken the foot off the pedal and coasted along on the tails of the early adopters. But this has lead to an influx of disruptors looking to shake up the market and offer some impressive competition. Older pricing was based on 'seats' or users and scaled dramatically. This lead to entire teams sharing a single login so the company could save on costs. They were often aimed at just the back office side of construction and rarely had an app, and they did, it was shocking.

Luckily, things have changed. There are now a number of solutions on the market place, with huge feature sets, ergonomic interfaces, sleek apps that work offline and one price for the organisation, regardless of the number of users needed - even including external companies for a TRUE collaboration experience.

The Fonn way It's probably not a surprise then, that Fonn includes all of the above, and a shed load more. Fonn recently raised $3m in funding to help with the growth plans for the UK and US markets and the adoption of the software sees no signs of slowing down despite the ongoing global pandemic. Many companies are now looking at better ways to manage lone and distanced working, or ways to improve efficiency with a reduced workforce. If this sounds like something that can benefit your company, we would love to hear from you.