Digital technologies are a major driving force of innovation in today’s construction industry, and Autodesk is poised to become a major resource for construction companies. The company’s three major acquisitions of construction software companies in 2018 fits into a broad strategy of providing digital products for different stages of construction workflow.
From Construction Dive:
In an effort to expand its cloud-based BIM 360 construction management platform, the $27 billion software giant absorbed data management firm Assemble Systems in July for an undisclosed amount, field management platform PlanGrid in November for $875 million (its biggest acquisition ever), and most recently, bid management platform BuildingConnected for $275 million net cash. Autodesk completed the latter deal, which was announced in December, at market close today[, January 23, 2019]. …
Autodesk’s BIM 360 is well-catered to project management from the office, he added, while mobile-centric PlanGrid adds field expertise to the equation. BuildingConnected not only fills the preconstruction gap in Autodesk’s offerings, but loops in “an ecosystem of suppliers and contractors that can engage and interact with each other to get the right kinds of bids out to and back from various projects, “ [Autodesk CEO Andrew] Anagnost said. … The products pair extremely well … especially with Autodesk’s earlier acquisition of Assemble, which extracts quantities from model data. …
Construction firms don’t need heavy-duty project management or the most sophisticated tools yet — but “they all need to start thinking about how to manage their flow of information digitally,” [Anagnost] said. “It’s not a matter of the size of firms — it’s a matter of the awareness of the availability of the technology and how well it’s designed to work with what they do.”
