Technology priorities in construction

Waterstons' Executive Consultant Alistair McLeod talks about how construction companies can use technology to drive change or gain a competitive advantage...

Traditionally the construction industry has had an indifferent approach to IT and while investment has risen in recent years, it is still low compared to the worldwide average. However, raising the budget is not the only answer and construction organisations need to place IT at the centre of the business strategy, enabling them to use technology more effectively to drive through improvements. IT Managers should have more involvement in defining and prioritising business strategy so they can bridge the gap between business requirements and technology. It is crucial that the IT investment is relevant and embodies the principles of both a strategically enabled and commodity-focused IT strategy.

Strategic IT projects should focus on the tight integration of critical business information, real time visibility of business performance and the unification of supply chains and project teams. This means communication and collaboration technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint and mobile technology will play an important future role.

Commodity focused projects should to seek to create a secure, resilient and low cost IT infrastructure that puts the emphasis on reducing vulnerabilities, lowering total cost and minimising risk. Leading the way is server virtualisation, and unified communication technology such as Voice over IP (VOIP).

Finally priorities should be driven by business objectives and external pressures and a balance needs to be struck between focusing on the vulnerabilities of not implementing a technology, against using IT to gain a competitive advantage or drive change within the business.

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