Surprised by how many small contractors skip project management software

I was reading through a report from the Associated General Contractors of America last week and found out that nearly 60 percent of small construction firms with under 20 employees still rely on paper schedules and spreadsheets for project tracking. That really caught me off guard given how cheap basic cloud tools have gotten. I figured most guys would have switched over by now to save time on change orders and daily logs. Has anyone else run into this resistance on smaller job sites and found a way to get them to adopt something simple?

3 comments

3 Comments

mila_campbell256d ago

Pretty much nailed it honestly. In my experience a lot of those smaller crews have been doing it the same way for 15 years and don't see the point in fixing something that isn't completely broken yet. Takes a few nasty change order disputes or a messed up billing cycle before they finally give it a shot.

uma_ellis6d ago

Oh man yeah it's the same thing with so many other things too. Like I see it with my uncle who runs a small landscaping business still using a paper ledger from 2005 because "it works fine" until he lost a whole month of invoices last year. People just get into a groove and don't realize the little cracks are getting bigger until something actually breaks. It's that whole "it's not broken yet so why fix it" mindset we all have with everything from our phones to our health habits.

alexk605d ago

And it's everywhere, not just construction or landscaping. I see it with people at the hardware store all the time, they'll buy the cheapest tool that barely does the job instead of spending a little more on something that won't break after three uses. Then they're back a week later complaining about how nothing is made to last anymore. It's like we all just wait until something blows up in our face before we change anything. The phone thing is a perfect example too, everyone waits until their battery lasts an hour before they finally upgrade.