Construction software for property developers
Construction software that understands property developers’ challenges
The property developer has an important and versatile role in construction processes. He or she selects suitable building locations and promising renovation projects, draws up project plans and budgets, co-directs the financial, creative and construction-technical side of a project and supervises various experts. A property developer is also constantly identifying opportunities for profitable investments in land and buildings.
Communication is both a prerequisite and a challenge for property developers. Indeed, in this role you maintain intensive contact with a wide range of external parties and individuals. Investors, architects, contractors and municipalities are stakeholders who regularly join you. Managing and streamlining communication and document flows requires a good, digital and user-friendly system for managing and archiving documentation. This way, you increase efficiency, reduce the risk of errors and improve communication and cooperation between all parties involved in a construction project.
Good construction software meets the practical and operational needs of property developers. But what exactly is construction software? What are its benefits? And why is construction software ideal for property developers? Read on and discover the answers to these important questions.
CUSTOMISED AS STANDARD
What does software specifically made for property developers do?
Work with external users
You work together with the whole supply chain in one system. This way, everyone works with the same information and the quality of projects is guaranteed.
Share files
Files, that’s what projects are all about. With the right software, you can share them easily, even with external project members.
Versioning
All modifications and changes to those files are (automatically) captured in the system.
Safety first
The information must be secure. By assigning rights at different levels, everyone only sees the documents they are allowed to see.
Some of the property developers using our construction software
The challenges faced by property developers
Property developers play an important, guiding role in planning and executing construction projects. Partly because they have such a wide and varied range of tasks, they run into several challenges when regulating construction projects. We list the most important ones.
The role of new technology
The construction sector is by nature a rather traditional and conservative industry, but now it cannot avoid integrating new technologies. Think, for example, of connecting different buildings with IoT, creating so-called ‘smart communities’. Building maintenance is increasingly shifting towards ‘smart metering and maintenance’. This means not planning maintenance based on budget or the number of years a building or installation is in use, but using targeted monitoring to keep track of exactly when maintenance is needed.
Finding the right building materials in the desired quantity and at affordable prices is also a serious challenge these days.
More costly and scarce materials
Finding the right building materials in the desired quantity and at affordable prices is also a serious challenge these days. This is partly a legacy of the corona crisis, but also an effect of globally playing geopolitical and macroeconomic developments. With rising costs and longer delivery times of building materials, property developers need to have a good understanding of all aspects of a construction project to deliver the end result within the set budget.
Growing need for comfortable and sustainable living
Modern housing needs combine comfort and sustainability. Houses should be well insulated, energy-efficient and fully equipped, while all basic facilities (shops, schools, sports facilities, healthcare institutions) should ideally be available within a radius of a few kilometres (think of the idea of the ’15-minute city’). Realising these wishes requires a solid dose of creativity and innovativeness, as well as good communication and information coordination between all parties involved in a building project.
Aligning plans with all these stakeholders generates an almost endless stream of correspondence and documents.
Many stakeholders and external parties
A property developer has direct and indirect contact with a colourful variety of stakeholders and external parties. Think of construction professionals such as architects, contractors, subcontractors and craftsmen, but also policymakers such as municipalities or counties. Coordinating plans with all these stakeholders generates an almost endless stream of correspondence and documents. It is a challenge to manage all that documentation centrally and efficiently.
Construction software for property developers
Construction software helps property developers successfully tackle the challenges discussed above. After all, quite a few documents pass by during a project. Examples include zoning plans, CAD drawings, floor plans, Word and PDF files, blueprints, quotations, audio and video recordings, 3D models, bills of materials and quotations. With construction software, you have a single, central and clearly arranged software package in which you not only manage your documents, but also easily share and modify designs, monitor the progress of projects and improve communication and cooperation with chain partners (architects, construction companies, suppliers, plasterers, installers) within a construction project.
Construction software guarantees a versatile collaboration platform that is attentive to the specific needs of the parties involved in a construction project. It often listens to the names document management system (DMS) or common data environment (CDE). Whatever name you give the system, construction software is completely set up to share the right documents. Because information is always and everywhere available to all authorised parties within the construction project, you can effortlessly translate your project plans into a comprehensible design that contractors and construction personnel can work with.
What should you consider when choosing construction software?
The landscape of construction software today is a lot more diverse than it was a few years ago. This creates additional freedom of choice, but can also make it difficult for you as a property developer to select the right solution from the overwhelming supply. For instance, there are ‘point solutions’, software packages that mainly support very specific processes within the construction industry. You can also opt for more widely deployable construction software that is usable for a diverse spectrum of construction processes, but still provides customisation.
Whatever choice you make, pay particular attention to ensuring that the selected construction software meets the following requirements:
Adaptability
As a property developer, you have to deal with changing regulations, but also, for example, changing material prices. The construction software should enable you to quickly adapt project plans to new realities.
Linking data
All data within a project must be linkable and relatable. This is the only way to create the overall picture you need as a property developer.
For the entire supply chain
The entire supply chain must be supported by construction software. From the spotted opportunity, negotiations, the plans, calculations, quotations, to the final realisation and maintenance of the project.
Working with supply chain partners
As a property developer, construction software should allow you to communicate with all parties involved. From the drawing board to completion. This makes the realisation of beautiful plans easier.
The benefits of construction software for property developers
Specialised construction software enables property developers to develop and communicate their vision. An idea in the head and on paper becomes a tangible plan that is easily translated into concrete building instructions for the executing parties.
Construction software also streamlines cooperation between supply chain partners. Data and documents can be found by all parties involved in a central and well-organised information environment. You no longer need to constantly e-mail documents or call at the drop of a hat to provide people with the latest data and document versions. The result? Everyone in the supply chain can do their work more efficiently and with fewer errors.
Because construction software allows you to store and edit all data and documents centrally, as a property developer it becomes easier to closely monitor the progress of a project. Is the envisioned timeline still correct, or do we run the risk of missing a project’s completion date? Are we still within budget? And will we get all the required materials on time? Construction software gives you answers to these crucial questions at every stage of a construction project. In addition, construction software makes it easier to comply with regulations. So as a property developer, you know whether projects initiated and delivered by you meet legally required quality standards.
Good construction software also helps you work more cost-efficiently and provides additional, hard- and up-to-date data-based insight into the feasibility of your project plans.
Good construction software also helps you work more cost-efficiently and provides additional, hard- and up-to-date data-based insight into the feasibility of your project plans. Property developers spend less time coordinating parties, always know whether tasks are on green or red, and no longer have to deal with a proliferation of (mismatched) digital tools and storage environments.
Smart version management also ensures that everyone is always working with the correct version of a document. The moment there is a new version or revision, you can upload it ‘over the old’. The old documents are preserved, but basically out of view. You do see that the version number continues, so you know you have the most up-to-date version of a file in front of you.
Users: rights and roles
In Prostream, you can assign user rights and roles to each user.
Send large files
Send big files or large quantities of files to colleagues or external parties. Secured with password so only the right person can access them.
Security of data
Software that carefully handles your project and business (sensitive) information. That will prevent problems. A safe working environment is essential. On the construction site, but also in the cloud. Unfortunately, you hear them all too often these days: terms like ‘data leak’ and ‘holding data hostage’. But also the more regular failure of computers and […]
Annotations
With annotations you are able to easily adjust documents in Prostream. You are able to add notes and comments as well as attachments, stamps and images.