Use of disconnected systems to analyse project data may limit the value of construction companies’ technology investments, research by CM and Access Construction suggests
Construction businesses are investing more and more in digital tools, but many are still relying on manual processes and fragmented data, leaving decision-makers struggling to turn information into meaningful insight.
That’s according to the latest Construction Management survey, carried out in association with Access Construction.
It found widespread use of dashboards and reporting platforms across the industry, however, many organisations continue to depend on spreadsheets and disconnected systems to analyse project data, limiting the value of their technology investments.
More than four in five respondents (83%) said spreadsheets remain one of their primary tools for analysing data, while half continue to rely on manually produced reports. At the same time, 29% said they frequently feel overwhelmed by the volume of dashboards and data available to them.
Alex Boury, general manager at Access Construction, said the results reflected an industry that has invested in technology without fully addressing the quality and accessibility of the underlying data.
“Despite its reputation of being ‘behind the times’, it’s clear that the construction industry hasn’t underinvested in technology,” he said. “Firms have bought dashboards and reporting layers, but bolted them onto data that still lives in spreadsheets and disconnected systems underneath.
“You end up with a fancy window into fragmented and messy data. That’s why 83% are still analysing in spreadsheets despite all the tooling available to them. Dashboards are only ever as good as what is feeding them.”
Data preparation remains a major productivity drain
The survey also highlights the significant amount of time construction professionals spend simply preparing information before they can make decisions.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents said they spend more than three hours gathering and preparing data before it is ready for analysis. Within that group, around one-third spend more than six hours, while almost one in five said the process takes longer than an entire working day.
Respondents identified manual data gathering and analysis as the biggest obstacle to generating useful insight, with 56% selecting it as their primary challenge.
Boury said the amount of time being lost should concern businesses.
“The number that should worry every construction leader is that 72% of respondents are spending more than three hours preparing data before they can make a decision, and a third are losing more than six,” he said.
“Construction leaders are spending their week rebuilding a picture the system should hand over to them in seconds.”
Fragmented systems hold firms back
The survey also points to the continuing challenge of disconnected information across construction businesses.
More than three-quarters of respondents (76%) said departments either frequently or occasionally work from different systems and data sources. Meanwhile, 38% identified the absence of a single source of truth as one of the biggest barriers to generating meaningful insight.
Boury said that this fragmentation has direct commercial consequences.
“Only 15% of firms are working from a unified system, and 76% say their departments routinely pull information from different sources,” he said.
“In construction that’s particularly dangerous, because the gap between what finance sees and what the site sees is where margin quietly disappears. A single source of truth is the difference between catching a job losing money while you can still act, and finding out at final account.”
AI interest outpaces adoption
While artificial intelligence continues to attract attention across the construction sector, the survey suggests practical adoption remains at an early stage.
Just 6% of respondents said they currently use AI to generate actionable business insights from their data. Most organisations remain in the exploratory phase, with 43% saying they are investigating how AI could support their business. More than one in five respondents said they have no plans to adopt AI for data analysis.
Boury said that improving data management should come before wider AI adoption.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm about AI in these results, but only 6% actually using it for insight,” he noted.
“AI can’t generate a trustworthy insight from data scattered across five systems and a dozen spreadsheets. Instead, it’ll just produce confident answers from incomplete inputs. ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ still applies. Get the single source of truth right, and AI starts being genuinely useful.”
Overall, the survey paints a picture of an industry that has made significant progress in digitising its operations but continues to wrestle with fragmented information and labour-intensive reporting processes.
About the survey and respondents
Construction Management and CIOB received responses from 105 built environment professionals for the survey.
The breakdown of the respondents was as follows:
- Job role: Construction director 21%; Project manager 24%; Consultant 14%; Quantity surveyor 14%; Architect/designer 6%; Health and safety 3%; Contracts manager 3%; Other 15%.
- Organisation: Main contractor 29%; Client 12%; Consultant 33%; Specialist contractor 6%; House builder 3%; Architect/designer 4%; Other 15%.
- Organisation size: 5,000+ employees 20%; 1,000–4,999 13%; 250–999 9%; 50–249 employees 20%; 49 employees or fewer 38%.
