The UK ‘project extranet’ vendors’ association, the Network of Construction Collaboration Technology Providers (NCCTP) has today published its market research report, Proving Collaboration Pays. The research was undertaken by an independent market research consultancy, Benchmark Research, and is – to the best of my knowledge – the biggest ‘extranet’ user survey ever undertaken, certainly as far as the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector is concerned. Benchmark interviewed 272 people (from 195 different organisations), all users of the leading UK systems.
Mind you, I chaired the NCCTP market research steering group, and drafted the news release, so am probably more than a little bit biassed, but I think this is a significant report. The key findings are:
- Three-quarters of clients increasingly favour contractors with ‘extranet’ experience (a view supported by the non-clients in the survey)
- Average drawing review periods reduced by 26%
- Users claim greater control over projects undertaken using extranets
- The technology has significant traction – more than half of all users want to use extranets on most or all future projects
- It’s not about time and cost savings – control, communication and collaboration benefits are rated more highly
- Benefits rated as “substantial” include:
- round-the-clock online availability of documents, drawings and other project data
- holding all project data in a single central repository
- reduced expenditure on couriers or post
- less chance of losing important documents or drawings
- improved audit trail
But judge for yourselves…. Here are links to the full "Proving Collaboration Pays" report and a PDF version of a PowerPoint presentation (both are also available for download from the NCCTP website). If you have any comments about the research, please let me know.
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