The Case for Focusing on Small- to Medium-Sized Civil Contractors

We love small- to medium-sized civil contractors.?As a founder, this is the space I know intimately, having experienced the challenges faced by contractors of this size firsthand.? Originally I didn’t set out to build a software system - I was looking for a solution in the market that didn’t exist.? The existing solutions were either designed for much larger businesses or didn’t cater for the specific needs of civil contractors.

Fortunately we didn’t need to figure this out alone.? In keeping with my civil construction roots, we worked with our early customers to build the solution that the industry needed - this solution already existed, woven through Excel spreadsheets, contract documentation, unstructured communications via email and industry best practices for cost and contract management.? If just thinking about that makes you nervous, you have plenty of company!

Here’s what we learned along the journey with Varicon :

1. Filling the Gap for Small to Medium Contractors

The existing solutions just didn’t work for companies turning over less than $100M per year.? Our customers who had used these systems reported that they were complicated, required dedicated resources to maintain, didn’t work for their teams onsite, were expensive, and were generally not a good fit for their needs. They also reported feeling like they were just another number, and post-sale support would quickly fall away.

This was our first insight.? When I went looking for a solution for myself, so many other civil contractors asked me to let them know when I found this elusive solution that we ended up building it ourselves!? The opportunity was for an affordable solution for smaller businesses that is easy to use, flexible and gives the critical information any construction business needs without the fuss.

2. Unique Challenges of Small and Medium Contractors

Whereas a larger business can afford to have teams of employees for contract admin, cost controls and systems management, smaller civil contractors do not have this luxury.

In smaller teams like the ones I worked with, everyone wears many hats all the time. There is an ideal world where you have perfect documentation and project controls in place, then there is the real world where you need to prioritise, pick your battles and focus on what’s most important.

This is the Varicon approach for lean teams.? We started with the low hanging fruit - disconnects requiring time consuming duplication of data, then we worked on workflows to give users flexibility for the level of detail that makes sense.? We continue to work on this tirelessly, and adopt new technologies like AI as they become available to make management even easier and more seamless for our customers.

3. Size of the Opportunity

Small and medium-sized contractors make up a large portion of the construction industry that has been neglected for too long.? On smaller private projects or for local government, it’s small to medium-sized contractors who deliver.? Even on mega projects it’s companies like yours who actually deliver this work.? All together, the value delivered by small-to-medium sized contractors vastly exceeds that of large contractors - a huge opportunity.?

4. Bottom-Up Approach to Cost Management

From the early work we did before writing any code, we knew that knowing your costs was critical for any civil contractor.? This is obvious to any business - if you have more money going out than coming in, eventually you’ll go broke.

The problem facing any small to medium-sized contractor is getting this data in the first place.? Costs are incurred at the job-site, not in the office.? Being able to track cost requires tools for the job-site. These tools must be extremely easy to use, intuitive, and time-saving rather than burdensome. Rather than focus on the end goal of cost visibility, our work went into creating the easiest experience for field users to capture this data in the first place.? With this problem solved, giving the critical data required in the office is the easy part.

5. Building a Connected Ecosystem

One of our founding insights was that cost and contract management data in construction is connected by its nature.? Before Varicon, these connections were done by humans by transferring information between different spreadsheets manually and communicating between parties via email.? This is hugely time consuming, inconsistent and prone to error.

Core to our development philosophy is connected cost and contract management.? We started with connecting this information within our customers’ business, and we are progressively connecting our customers more and more with their customers and suppliers.

We continue to focus on the needs of the small- to medium-sized businesses like yours that make civil construction work.? We are inspired to keep at it by seeing our customers transforming their businesses with confidence that the important things are being looked after, that they know how their business is really performing and can focus on winning work, developing their teams and delivering project outcomes.

If this journey sounds like one you know your business needs to embark on, get in touch with us and join Australia’s leading civil contractors in the industry’s fastest growing cost and contract management solution. You can also find more information here ?? www.varicon.com.au