www.jlconline.com: For contractors, staying profitable in today’s volatile market is no small feat. Between tariffs, fluctuating material costs, and unpredictable labor availability, jobsite budgets are under constant pressure. But according to Greg Pyne, VP of pricing data services, and David Obert, chief product officer at Verisk’s Property Estimating Solutions, contractors can mitigate these challenges with smarter estimating strategies and up-to-date data.
2 comments:
This is a pretty interesting estimation tool. It actually seems pretty standard aside from boasting that its pricing information is updated more frequently and accurately than competing programs. I think it’s interesting that, according to them, analysts will “provide updates” on material costs in cases of economic uncertainty. I also thought that it was interesting that they offered information about pay rates by industry and location. Most estimation tools take labor into consideration, but I don’t think I’ve seen any that have information about employee rates. Though it seems like a cool program, I doubt it would integrate well into theater. If nothing else, our budgeting process and where our dollars end up is so different from the typical construction world that Verisk is designed for. I think that there’s a good opportunity for a tech company to make a piece of estimation software specifically designed for theater and entertainment.
The instability of many contractor businesses shows that many of them could benefit from more accurate estimation tools. Lining up jobs so that your crew can have consistent work is key to keeping your business afloat. The more jobs that are lined up will push your bids on contracts with current prices months away from when you actually purchase materials. With a volatile market that can be devastating especially with the swings in tariffs causing I even more instability in material prices.
A tool like that adds a couple thousand to your overhead year after year but the utilization of it and better contract writing will hopefully save even more money than it costs. A tool that accesses online information of course is also inherently flawed in its exact pricing if you want to purchase from offline lumber yards that do not provide online real-time pricing for data scraping tools like this one. They will give a good average for an estimation and comparison with bigger stores that do
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