Not Using Your Bidding History? WHY NOT?

If you are like most general contractors, bidding both "negotiated" and "hard bid" projects, you are collecting thousands of subcontractor bids each and every year. Selecting the right mix of subcontractors and their respective bids is an important and necessary step in your estimating workflow. At the same time you are analyzing these bids for each individual project, you are collecting a tremendous amount of bid history across all the projects you are bidding.

Your subcontractor bidding history is extremely valuable, but unfortunately, it's too often the case that most general contractors are not able to put this bid history to work, helping them to be more competitive on future projects. Ideally, your bid history should be at your fingertips when you are receiving subcontractor bids on a project you are currently bidding. For example, you should always be able to see the average cost per SF for every trade you are bidding. You should be able to filter your bid history by analyzing past projects of similar scope in the same market segment as the current project you are bidding.

BidMatrix by Bridgetown Software, Inc., not only allows you to easily and intelligently manage the subcontractor "bid day" process on individual projects, it provides you the ability to instantly mine your bid history across all your past projects. The BidMatrix application includes a free API that provides access to your bid history using tools like Microsoft PowerBI and Tableau. The example below shows how you can use the BidMatrix API to review the average SF cost for each trade, in similar market segments, over a specific timeframe, in the same region.

Using your bid history would also provide you a window into which types of project bids you are most frequently winning and which projects you are less competitive.

As a general contractor you know all to well that the key to profitability is successfully managing risk. Tools like BidMatrix help minimize risk by allowing your decisions to be driven by real data, your data, your intellectual property.