Focus on the future: Harnessing the Internet to streamline procurement of mechanical equipment
Mechanical contractors know the investment of time, effort, and paperwork required to procure equipment and materials, as well as to find a secondary market for excess materials once a job is completed. Yet today there is a powerful, cost-effective tool for mechanical contractors to streamline the procurement process: the Internet.
If one considers the volume of business that is expected to be done over the Internet in the next few years — $1.3 trillion in business-to-business sales over the World Wide Web by 2004, according to Forrester Research — it is hard to ignore the fact that the web is the wave of the future.
That power can be harnessed to overcome the high costs and inefficiencies of the procurement process for buyers of mechanical equipment and materials — anything from piping to large air-handling units. Many of the costs and inefficiencies arise from the fragmentation of the $650-plus billion United States construction industry. The top five contractors make up less than 2.5% of total industry revenues. There are over 500,000 purchasers of products and equipment, including general contractors and subcontractors, and there are more than 300,000 product suppliers, of which the top 10 make up less than 15% of the market.