Construction Field Operations and Finance: Bridging the Gap

A construction company’s success hinges in part on how cohesive its finance and field operations teams are. The well-known challenge, however, is that these two teams work in silos and notoriously struggle to align. So how can construction leaders help these two teams overcome rifts that can lead to massive losses and inefficiency?

In this episode, James Coyle, co-founder of Event 1 Software, explains why communication is key to getting finance and field operations teams on the same page. James shares tried-and-true tactics that companies of all sizes can implement to help these two teams understand each other’s needs and work better together. He also breaks down the ways these teams can support one another and where tech comes into play.

Key Takeaways:

1. The key to any coordination is a deep understanding of KPIs. Construction companies need to make use of the transparency that technology offers. Encourage your finance and field operations teams to share each other’s KPIs. This leads to better understanding and increased mutual respect.
2. Use technology that showcases both team’s pressure points. Everyone knows that finance cares about dollars and cents while operations cares about quantities and budgets. Tech solutions like digital forms give visibility to projects, shining a light on the key areas both teams prioritize. Transparency helps them better understand and empathize with one another’s needs and concerns.
3. Insights from the field ensure more accurate budgetary goals. When the finance department creates budgetary goals solely based on numbers in a spreadsheet, they’ll miss critical insights from field operations. However, by using collected data and cost codes from previous projects, finance can make more informed recommendations based on these insights from the field.