Canonical list of problem areas in construction software. Every competitor dossier scores itself 0–100 against this grid (depth of coverage), so the whole set is comparable and overlap/whitespace is visible. Grounded in industry directories (Capterra/G2/ConTechFinder) + our commercial thesis. Dashboard: Dashboard · method: _RESEARCH-METHOD.
Coverage scale (0–100): 0 = none · 25 = touches (via integration/side-feature) · 50 = partial/real-but-shallow · 75 = core product area · 100 = deep / best-in-class.
A. Pre-construction / commercial-in
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 1 | Bid & Tender Management | Find, qualify, respond to bids/tenders; track bid docs & clarifications |
| 2 | Estimating & Takeoff | Quantify materials/labour/cost from drawings to produce a price |
| 3 | Prequalification & Procurement | Vet subs/suppliers; buy materials; manage POs |
B. Field execution / capture
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 4 | Field Mgmt / Daily Reporting | Capture what happened on site — logs, photos, notes |
| 5 | Time, Labour & Workforce | Time tracking, crew/labour allocation, productivity |
| 6 | Safety & Compliance | Incidents, toolbox talks, permits, regulatory compliance |
| 7 | Quality / QA-QC / Snagging | Defects, inspections, rework reduction |
C. Project controls / coordination
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 8 | Project Management (system of record) | Central source of truth: budgets, docs, comms, workflows |
| 9 | Scheduling / Programme | Activities, sequencing, critical path, look-ahead |
| 10 | Progress & Production Tracking | Actual vs plan; productivity vs estimate; % complete |
| 11 | RFIs / Submittals / Document Control | Info requests, approvals, drawing/spec version control |
| 12 | BIM / Design Coordination | 3D model, clash detection, data-rich coordination |
| 13 | Reality Capture / Drone / Survey | 360/drone progress verification vs model/schedule |
D. Commercial / money
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 14 | Cost Management & Forecasting | Job costing, budgets, margin, cost-to-complete |
| 15 | Change / Variations / Claims / Entitlement | Recover money from changes, delays, disruption, disputes (our wedge) |
| 16 | Accounting / AP-AR / Payroll | Financial back-office; pay crews & subs |
E. Lifecycle / downstream
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 17 | O&M / Handover / Golden Thread | As-builts, manuals, compliance handover to client |
| 18 | Equipment / Asset / Material Tracking | Fleet utilisation, material/component supply chain |
| 19 | Insurance & Risk | Risk, bonding, dispute/insurance documentation |
F. Cross-cutting / intelligence
| # | Area | Problem it solves |
|---|
| 20 | Communication & Client Collaboration | Office↔field↔client info sharing, portals |
| 21 | Historical Cost / Benchmarking Intelligence | Reuse past project data to price/risk the next job (our moat) |
Note: areas 15 and 21 are central to our own thesis and are where incumbents are typically thin. Source: dossiers/raw_market/exa_taxonomy.json.
Eventual output: a cross-competitor coverage heatmap (rows = competitors, cols = these 21 areas) — instantly shows where the market is crowded (overlap) and where the whitespace is.