SiteMax fills contech’s missing middle

Canada’s next great construction tech boom is in full swing.

But not every construction company is ready for it.

With the rise of technology like artificial intelligence, many companies are ramping up their efforts to digitize their processes and modernize their operations. This has positioned industry software leaders like SiteMax for major growth as they stand ready to assist. 

The company offers field management software designed to meet the needs of a general contractor or subcontractor on a commercial, multi-family residential, hi-rise or light industrial project. The complete jobsite management platform has generated millions of daily logs, safety reports, photo records, time entries and more worldwide.

Keeping pace with industry needs

Braden Barwich, SiteMax’s vice president of sales, has seen significant expansion in the past few years and the platform has grown and evolved to keep pace. 

“We’ve seen a lot of growth both on the product side as well as on the customer side,” said Barwich. “Over the last couple years a big kind of jump that we’ve made is moving into the project management and document management process side of the software. So we’ve added RFI tracking, change order tracking, submittals and purchase orders into our mix of tools.”

This connects all external stakeholders, like consultants, engineers, architects and sub trades to the general contractor so documents can flow amongst the entire project team. 

“That’s been a big step and brought us into a different domain,” he said. “Especially since COVID, we saw a huge uptick in companies switching to technology. I think it just sped up what was inevitable.”

He explained that the development of SiteMax has been led by our customers and their feedback, but also their team’s ultimate goal of SiteMax being the digital hub of a jobsite.

Technology gaps are widening

Not all companies are at the same point in their technology transformation. Barwich noted that he is seeing two camps: Those who are still in the early stages of digitizing their processes and those who have already digitized and are looking to take bigger steps. 

“You have people talking about using AI and then others who would just love to have digital time cards and not use paper every week, so there is a huge gap there,” he said. “I think that gap is just going to widen and the people that know how to use technology and adopt it are going to speed off ahead. I don’t think it’s too late at this point, but it’s really going to accelerate growth on the AI side.”

AI has been on SiteMax’s radar for years and they have been strategizing about the best ways to integrate it into their platform. The technology has already become a boon to site superintendents and project managers, especially for repetitive tasks, like filling out daily or weekly reports. 

“It’s not going to replace these people on site, but it’s going to make their job a lot better because it can do that mundane paperwork,” said Barwich.

SiteMax will grow with you 

While Canada’s large contractors have big budgets to spend on technological advancement, SiteMax’s goal is to assist small and medium-sized contractors who want to advance their journey as well.

“That is our target market and our advice is to just get in the game,” said Barwich. “It’s not too late.”

But when it comes to picking a technology platform, many options are pricey and offer extra features that go unused for smaller contractors. Or there are one-off options that only address one issue a contractor faces.

“There’s enterprise software solutions that are very high end, very all inclusive and expensive and then there’s one-off software that you’ll outgrow very quickly. So you’re kind of caught between these two worlds,” said Barwich. “What we’re trying to provide is right in the middle, for small to medium-sized businesses who are thinking ‘maybe I’m late to the game’. Maybe they aren’t ready to go into the AI world, but they want to be there at some point.”

He explained that getting your foot in the door with a package that you can adopt and that your business is ready for is key as then you can continue to grow and adapt with it. 

“Don’t wait for people to retire, don’t keep waiting for external events to push you, because then it will be too late. This shift is going to happen very quickly so you want to start laying the digital groundwork in your business.”

It’s a missing middle that only SiteMax is stepping up to fill. Their ideal customer is agile, wants something easy to use and is looking for a streamlined solution to fit their processes. 

“There are people using three to four different apps when they could be using one complete system,” said Barwich. “But they aren’t willing to pay an arm and a leg for the big ones and only use 50% of it. That’s where SiteMax comes in. We are empowering these middle-sized companies.”  

Barwich encouraged companies looking to start their transformation journey to reach out to SiteMax for demos, videos and other materials to get a more in-depth understanding of what they can offer. 

“It’s very flexible in terms of our pricing plans,” he said. “So, no matter what stage of the business you’re at, let’s talk.”

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