Why Construction Firms Don't Digitize - Myth #4

Stephanie Patterson, Rhumbix InsiderJune 20, 2017 • 3 min read

Part 4 of a series on the most common reasons construction firms don’t adopt digital solutions.

In the final installment of our Construction Technology Myths series, we’re tackling a topic of growing importance to any company considering new digital solutions: integration.

Myth 4: “It won’t integrate with our systems.”

Integration is a question that inevitably comes up in any sales discussion because it matters.

Big time.

We regularly hear stories about investments in new technology that ended up being more of a burden than a benefit because of the manual work required to get the data out of one tool and into another.

But the industry is changing. It used to be that software providers did everything in their power to keep you locked into their solution. NOT integrating with other systems was considered part of their strategy to keep sales strong.

Today, it’s rare to find a software company that doesn’t provide open API’s. Construction companies are fed up with paying for different systems that don’t talk to each other, and have rightfully made ease-of-integration a key priority for any new solution. The pressure they’re putting on software providers is working.

Just this last year, we’ve watched key players take big steps to prioritize ease of integration.

Procore is a great example. They know the industry is too complex for them to do everything, so they let their customers grab any software they want to integrate with Procore and make that possible through their App Marketplace.

The final holdouts to integration are older software providers, many of them accounting systems. The challenges of integrating with an older system are typically greater because they weren’t built with the intent to integrate.

And yet, even with companies that don’t have open API’s, there are ways to build a seamless integration.

Ryvit is a third party integration company that builds and maintains integrations for construction firms. Ryvit gives construction firms the freedom to choose the applications that fit their business without having to worry about whether or not they will integrate.

At Rhumbix, our philosophy is to integrate with any other software company our customer uses. We have partnered with Ryvit to build on-premise integrations for our customer’s ERP and accounting software systems, because we never want integration to be a reason not to use Rhumbix. We’re in the Procore App Marketplace and have integrations with Viewpoint, Quickbooks and Xero. Sage and Spectrum are also offered through our partnership with Ryvit, and we’re regularly adding others.

The new reality of construction technology is that there are ways to make almost any integration possible. If you’re on the fence about adopting a new software application, consider the matter of integration handled, and continue to explore solutions for making your software work for you.


Check out the other myths on why construction firms don’t digitize:

Myth #1: “Creating an in-house solution is better than buying one off-the-shelf ”
Myth #2: “We know this is important, but it’s not urgent”
Myth #3: “The field won’t like it”