'Sceptical' construction turns its back on e-business

Construction firms are not interested in e-business. That's the conclusion of a survey by software company BsoftB. Nearly 40 % of the construction IT directors interviewed had no plans to take advantage of business-to-business e-marketplaces, and 40% still had to consider implementing an e-business strategy. More than half said their focus was on in-house bespoke development, rather than using external consultation or an application service provider, such as Briscnet.com or theBIW.com.

The survey was sent to 500 IT directors across all industries. Construction represented one-quarter of those. Richard Wall, sales and marketing director at Bsoft, said the results were worrying.

"Even though 48% said they were using e-business, when you look further into the results, most of them are actually only providing a static website, not completing transactional processes."

John Connaughton, programme manager of the IT Best Practice Programme, said he was not surprised by the survey's findings and hadn't expected so many contractors to have already implemented a strategy.

"E-business technology is still in its infancy in construction. There are no robust end-to-end solutions yet, despite what some of the software providers say." Tim Cole, community manager at Construction Industry Trading Electronically, the industry-owned organisation which offers advice on e-business, said: "It's not my experience that companies aren't planning an e-business strategy. They are more pragmatic and perhaps more sceptical of technology, but the approach is more business-centred now. Instead of fitting the business to the technology, people are fitting the technology to the business, which is how it should be."