ERP for Construction Industries: Major Products & Players

Whether you're a bricklayer or a scaffolder, an architect or a contractor, working within the construction industry presents challenges that ERP software can solve. So having decided you are interested in ERP for construction industries you now need to assess the market. The importance of market research cannot be stressed enough, especially when it comes to selecting ERP software. It could mean the difference between ERP success and ERP failure.

Construction ERP software normally implements modules such as tender and bid management, contract and project management, equipment and rental management, resource management, contract and project execution, financial and human capital management.

As far as predominant ERP vendors go, Sage Construction clearly dominates the market when it comes to the construction industry. Sage construction’s parent company, Sage Group is the world’s third-largest provider of ERP software (behind giants Oracle and SAP) - to hear Sage is dominant in any ERP market is not a surprise. Sage Construction offers ERP solutions to a broad range of sub-industries within construction - including contracting, house building, onshore and offshore services. The company was awarded the ERP accounting product of the year in November 2012 for the Sage ERP EVision software. The ERP EVision software is targeted at contracting companies with a $20m+ turnover, so not for the small fish.

If the big-daddy of construction ERP is not for you there are many other ERP vendors which offer construction industry software with vendors such as Avanade providing on premises or cloud ERP services, giving your construction company the option to implement self-hosted or cloud-hosted ERP systems. Avanade also offer integration of a two-tiered construction ERP system if you have an existing corporate ERP system.

The Best of the Rest

For tailored construction ERP for industries such as scaffolding, material handling racks and structural accessories, California-based Acero Solutions offer mobile and short-term licensing options for additional flexibility.

Further construction ERP vendors include Aptean - catering for home building and real-estate, and Progressive Solutions - providing ERP solutions for the lumber and building materials industry.