Making Data-Driven Bid Decisions

Brian Poage, Construction Support Manager at Raken and Amanda Wolfe, Content Marketing Manager at STACK, lead a webinar on how to use data to improve estimate accuracy for bids. While introducing this topic, Brain says "we want anyone to uncover data, analyze it properly, and leverage that when we're entering into the bid and pre-construction phase".

This article will summarize some of the key takeaways from this webinar. Read on to learn more about collecting and using data to inform your estimates when bidding on projects.

Common reasons contractors struggle to win more work

The goal to win more work almost always fuels conversations about bidding. But it's important to remember that much of your success depends on the quality of data you have to work with. Unfortunately, many companies are working with a lack of data, or an abundance of irrelevant or inaccurate data.

These main causes for poor bidding performance can be broken down into three categories:

This article will summarize some of the key takeaways from this webinar. Read on to learn more about collecting and using data to inform your estimates when bidding on projects.

How Raken improves data (and bid estimates)

Thankfully, using a tool to digitally collect data can solve each of the above problems. Raken, a field-first data collection tools, makes it easy to track:

Once you have this data, you can compare the actual project versus what you bid. This assessment gives you the knowledge to make more profitable bids in the future.

Field-focused data collection for accuracy

No need to worry about collecting inaccurate data either—the right tool can eliminate many of the causes for errors in data. Focus on finding a data-collection tool that's easy to use in the field, since that's where all your data is being created. If you find the right field-focused tool, you'll find that data accuracy improves—along with the amount of data you receive.

What about communication? Digital data collection can also make it easy to share real-time data between the field and office, improving communication and jobsite visibility.

Once you collect that data, you can begin to utilize STACK to enhance your estimates.

Using data for preconstruction takeoff and estimating

Raken makes it easy to collect and organize data—as well as transfer data to software like STACK. STACK is a preconstruction software with takeoff and estimating tools, which means it can take the data collected by Raken to help you improve estimate accuracy. Historical data can also help you develop a strategy by revealing what projects were most profitable and best suited for your team.

While Raken gives you the data to make more accurate bids and assessments, you still need to take the time to utilize the data. Utilizing tools like STACK and other integratios for project management, accounting, and storage, will preserve your bandwidth so you can focus on strategy and improving profitability.

Better analyze and understand production rates

With more accurate data—and the insights to help you realize opportunities for improvement—you will enhance the quality of your bid. This means your bids are:

The bidding process includes first impressions—and having a tool that creates clean proposals can make your company stand out.

With construction tech, you also improve internal communication throughout the preconstruction process, since going digital streamlines remote collaboration and approvals.