By PlanRadar
Ten workflows, 170 people, two weeks, that is what it took one large general contractor to turn a software evaluation into an investment with business impact.
Plenty of contractors involve site teams when evaluating new software, but this contractor asked something different. Their site team had to establish whether the platform could become part of normal site delivery and whether the improvement of those workflows would justify the investment.
Software purchasing decisions are on most contractors’ desks right now. According to Wipfli’s 2026 survey, 94% of construction and real estate executives plan to add or replace at least one software tool in the next two years [1]. Asked what threatens the return on that spend, they put employee adoption and implementation cost at the top. PlanRadar’s 2026 survey of construction professionals found the same two were the biggest barriers to adoption. Among those yet to adopt digital tools for managing projects, the top reasons were people-related challenges such as resistance to change, and commercial concerns such as implementation cost and unclear return on investment [2]. Before signing, a contractor needs to know that its site team will use the platform day-to-day and that the gains will be worth the price.
Underused software has always wasted budget, but the opportunity cost is growing. As artificial intelligence (AI) is added to construction software, the project records built up inside these platforms become the foundation that every AI capability depends on. A platform that does not become part of the site team’s day weakens the next investment as well as this one. This general contractor’s evaluation was built to avoid that, and four of its choices are worth copying.
Test it on your own workflows, with every team they cross
The evaluation should run on processes, set up exactly as the teams run them today, with the same forms, approval steps and reports. A platform that cannot take the process as it stands will be worked around, however good its capabilities. Each workflow then has to be tested with every team that touches it. A non-conformance report raised by the quality team is fixed by the civil or mechanical and electrical team. Test it with quality alone and you have tested half of it.
The contractor’s request had started with its quality team wanting to digitise non-conformance reports and safety inspections, moving out of Excel sheets and WhatsApp groups. The evaluation grew to ten of its own workflows across quality, safety, clearances and snagging, configured around its existing forms and approvals and tested on a live project while the project carried on. What counted as success was agreed before the test started. Each workflow had to work practically on site, capture the right evidence, make responsibilities and open actions clear to everyone in the chain, and give project and management teams the visibility they needed.
Give people their normal work, and include the least confident
Once the workflows are set up, site teams should use the platform to carry out their normal work on the project, so the test shows how the platform performs in everyday site conditions. Involve people from every role the rollout would cover, not just those most comfortable with new software. The contractor involved 170 people, from senior engineers to technicians, across different nationalities and levels of confidence with technology.
The test of whether people will use the platform or go back to WhatsApp and Excel is whether each person can complete their own task in the first session, without a training course. A different contractor, after its own evaluation, put the requirement this way. “I need it to be intuitive, fast and easy to learn. In our test, within five minutes, our individual who uses technology at a very limited capacity had gotten grasp of it. To me that was key because that allowed us to adopt quickly across all our jobs.” [3]
Measure the workflow, then build the business case on your own figures
Time each workflow before the test, as your team runs it now, and again in the platform during the test. A feature list cannot tell you how long a workflow takes, so the comparison is what the evaluation has to produce.
The contractor built its business case from its own figures, with the site teams supplying how many of each workflow a project raises in a month and how long each took before the test.. The volumes ran to thousands a month. A non-conformance report that had taken 52 minutes took 16 in the test, and a safety inspection that had taken 52 minutes took 8. The difference, across that volume, was the efficiency case, and nothing in it came from a vendor’s claim.
Time saved is the gain you can measure with most confidence in two weeks, but it should not be the only gain in the business case. Any platform worth buying should also show where quality improves, where rework can be avoided and where the firm’s own processes can be simplified. The contractor put its own figure on the rework it expected to avoid once issues were recorded with evidence as they arose, and the test showed forms that could be simplified and steps that could be automated, which went into the proposal as well.
When the proposal reached the chief executive and finance director, the site teams who had supplied the figures were in the room to confirm them. The evidence on the table was from the firm’s own projects, showing how its own people worked and what changed when they worked in the platform, so the discussion was about whether the saving offered value for the price, not about whether the saving was real. Involving the site team from the start gives the decision a set of figures that operations and finance both trust.
Settle how it fits with the systems you keep
No single platform covers everything a contractor does, so part of the evaluation is deciding which processes the new platform takes over, which stay where they are, and whether information passes between the two without being retyped. The contractor settled that during the test. Its document-control system kept formal approvals, and the new platform took the site work that fed them. Deciding that boundary before the purchase is easier than discovering it after the rollout.
More than a purchase decision
When site teams test a platform against the work they manage every day, they can judge whether it will support delivery, and because the decision is partly theirs, they have a reason to make it work after purchase. The contractor’s two weeks produced evidence that the platform could support everyday site operations, figures that operations and finance both trusted, and 170 people who had already moved their own workflows out of WhatsApp groups and Excel sheets.
As AI becomes part of construction software, a platform the site team does not use costs more than an unused licence. Work that continues outside the platform leaves gaps in the project record, and AI can only work from the record the site team builds. Establishing whether site teams will use the platform consistently is therefore part of judging its longer-term value, not just whether the immediate efficiency gains justify the purchase.
Sources:
[1] Wipfli, The state of technology in the construction industry (2026): https://www.wipfli.com/insights/research/state-of-technology-in-the-construction-industry-2026
[2] PlanRadar, Managing Project Changes in the Age of AI (2026): https://www.planradar.com/industry-report/managing-project-changes-in-the-age-of-ai/ [3] PlanRadar customer story, Horizon Construction Group: https://www.planradar.com/us/lp/customer-story-horizon-construction-group/
