The construction industry is turning to IT to reduce costs and improve efficiency in this booming sector.

IT's role

IT has a real contribution to make. It may need to - one industry estimate puts 73 per cent of construction projects running over budget and 50 per cent of errors coming down to poor information.

Partly due to the fragmented nature of the industry, where teams of contractors pull together for short periods, it has been historically difficult to tie together disparate business functions. But consolidation in the field - particularly at the higher end - as well as a realisation that computers, seen previously as just for offices, can have a real contribution to make on-site, is changing the picture. A metric here is the growing number of executives, including IT professionals, who are entering construction companies from other sectors. Such CIOs tend to be more familiar with tier one ERP providers such as SAP and Oracle and less likely to patronise the niche players that have tended to dominate the sector, such as Coins.

Oracle gains favour

A factor here too was Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft and JD Edwards, which has given it further 'critical mass' in the sector and doubled the number of Oracle construction clients in the UK Construction 100 list. Significant Oracle sites now include both Balfour Beatty and Costain.