Third-party consultants are an essential part of the construction industry and the construction building process. Consulting roles are very specialized and can tailor their services to any industry sector. Depending on the status of a project, more consultants may be required than originally anticipated and budgeted for. While these consultants are critical in helping the project, the soft costs of a construction project can increase quickly.
At OnSiteIQ, we acknowledge that human expertise and intelligence can never replace even the most sophisticated software. However, as the construction industry seeks to become more scalable and efficient, saving on third-party consulting costs can be a great place to start by not removing them but by supplementing some of their service with OnsiteIQ. OnsiteIQ also provides them to be more efficient in saving their own time and fee and provide an added service that their competitors won’t have.
How Does OnSiteIQ Help Save on Third-Party Consulting Costs
Ultimately, there are two ways that OnSiteIQ’s photo and video documentation, and artificial intelligence platform can help save on third party consulting costs:
- Reduce the number of site visits and travel costs
- Reduce labor hours
- Reduced scope, i.e. progress reporting.
Saving on the Amount of Consultants Required
Everyone in the construction industry knows that consultants are readily available, though not all of them meet the level of expertise the owners and developers require. Of course once you find good consultants, making them your go-to option can move the needle on a project in a positive way with greater control and predictability on the schedule performance. With OnSiteIQ, the level of access and data provided to owners and developers allow you to focus on only hiring consultants and specialists that fill in the gaps since your key project indicators and knowledge of the project is enhanced.
With OnSiteIQ, owners and developers are getting real-time information through 360-degree photo and video documentation, which means less consulting time is needed for auditing and reporting on a job site. That time can be put towards moving the project forward to completion faster, and more efficiently.
OnSiteIQ lets owners and developers select their team of consultants in a way that maximizes the investment, and only contracting consultants when needed. Not only this, using OnsiteIQ will increase the communication between the project team, collaboration is increased all leading to the greater goal of project success.
Reducing the Scope of Work for Consultants
OnSiteIQ helps owners and developers curate the scopes of work required for consultants more efficiently. For example, with OnsiteIQ and its scheduling automation functionality, consultants can save up to 25% of their fee and travel costs because they are using OnsiteIQ. Another example is site walk-throughs. Again, no amount of technology can replace an in-person visit, but it can lower the number of times a consultant needs to walk through a site because they have access to OnSiteIQ’s real-time video documentation and schedule dashboard.
By reducing the onboarding time and amount of walk-throughs required with the comprehensive data set OnSiteIQ provides, which is backed by weekly photo and video documentation, a consultant picks up a project faster. This means a consultant can advise on the project sooner. Ultimately this creates a more efficient consultant, providing more time to solve bigger risks and allow the execution of additional services, resulting in the total cost of that consultant being lower than what would be needed without OnSiteIQ.
Why OnSiteIQ is Great for Consultants
If you are reading this, and are a consultant or representative of a consulting firm, OnsiteIQ is not trying to replace the great work consultants have historically done for the construction industry.
Instead, we are reversing industry norms of slow and inefficient processes by trying to create a schedule progress dashboard that all stakeholders and consultants use and become immediately aligned on the status of a project in real-time.
In turn, this will make individual projects happen faster, and turnover from one project to the other faster, meaning your consultants and the project team are more efficient. . OnSiteIQ is an industry disruptor and one that will continue to make enormous strides in the construction space. We encourage all consultants to become familiar with our product and stay tuned for the schedule dashboard releasing on September 15th, 2021.
Consultants can get a free demo of OnSiteIQ. As competition becomes aggressive, and construction becomes more automated and scalable, having a foundational knowledge of OnSiteIQ will only help you as more and more projects utilize our photo and video documentation.