Thrive or die: the necessary Contractor QS evolution

The hard thing about being a Contractor’s QS (cue engineers with very small violins…) is the volume of data we are expected to handle every working minute of every working day. We do this for several reasons, one being to produce monthly project financial reports – a staple of any Contractor QS’s role.

These reports are presented in the coliseum of a monthly project review meeting. Those who have survived the experience will regale stories about their gladiator-like directors delivering a blow-by-blow annihilation on of the report. We dust ourselves down and go again, determined that next month will be better.

As I reflect on my 20 years in the industry, as a reviewee and reviewer in those meetings, I can’t help but think that the way we do things has not really moved on. I worry about what this means for the Contractor QS role.

Our tool of choice is a spreadsheet (we are that bad I have even known QS’s use spreadsheets to write letters!) and we use spreadsheets to prepare financial information relating to costs, revenue, margin, cash etc. However, whilst we persist with spreadsheets because it is what we have always known, spreadsheets are no longer fit for purpose, and whilst most QS’s would shudder at the thought of a world without spreadsheets, they are, whether you realise it or not, limiting our performance.

I have a vision of contractor QS’s as data scientists who build data models, create powerful visuals, and yield immediate and effective insights about a project’s performance. We go cold turkey with spreadsheets, instead choosing to embrace software such as Power BI (which is included with a Microsoft business licence – yes, fellow QS’s, there is no extra cost!) to build platforms which analyse the various data sets we handle (cost, revenue, procurement, planning, operational, contractual etc).

Imagine if we could combine this with generative AI to ask questions like “were we productive yesterday?”, “did we make or lose money last week?”, “why did we over and under spent in the last month?”, and what we could do with accurate and concise answers? What if these questions could be asked at any level of an organisation and across an entire portfolio? A data-driven financial report, one which is free from human interface, driving everyone in an organisation to use one source of the truth.

This evolution would liberate us from the mundane data-processing aspect of our role and allow us to focus on strategic decision-making and value add activities. The productivity gains would allow us to bridge the skills shortage and offer a compelling opportunity for young people choosing their career path.

The barriers are cultural and skills-based. We do not create environments where the development and application of data science skills are encouraged and rewarded. The construction industry is, and always has been, slow to adapt to technological advancements.

However, whether we like it or not, the stark choice we face is to either embrace the technology available to us and thrive, or businesses will eventually find other ways of obtaining the information and a core part of the contractor QS role will die.

For me, this isn’t just a matter of staying relevant; it is a matter of survival.

 

About Tom Haley

Tom is a Commercial and procurement specialist with experience leading business units and significant projects in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong within main contractor, subcontractor and supplier businesses. He is an expert in commercial recovery, procuring for value and dispute resolution, with a track record of enhancing revenue, profit and cash.