contractor success Bidding With Ease Anytime And Anywhere Today’s mobile web applications give contractors instant access to bidding and estimating software. By: Dan Liebrecht T The recent and dramatic shifts in bidding and estimating technology for building ser-vice contractors (BSCs) — first to online software and now to mobile web applica-tions — couldn’t have come at a better time. Today’s cleaning contractors, like today’s tech-savvy consumers, want instant online access to their business software using any of their favorite mobile devices. Traditional desktop software in the form of a compact disk (CD) or download, while certainly useful to cleaning contractors over the years, has always been, by its very nature, limiting in its reach and effective-ness — restricting the user to either the computer the program is loaded on or to where the CD is readily available. Besides taking up valuable space on the computer hard drive, the user is respon-sible for the regular backup and updating of the software as well. And, while not perfect, this was the stan-dard software arrangement until the arrival of online, shared-server technology, often referred to as the “cloud.” Then, I got online. I put my proposal togeth-er in about 10 minutes.” Not surprisingly, the desire by BSCs for online bidding software mirrored consum-ers’ intense demand for online programs for everything from their banking to their favorite diet trackers and video games. However, once these online programs became widely available, consumers weren’t finished. Next, they wanted to use their favorite mobile devices, such as today’s smart-phones and tablets, to access their online software programs. Today’s mobile web applications now make that possible, too. Get Live Remote Access While online software gave cleaning con-tractors the flexibility of accessing their favorite software programs via the Internet, mobile web applications are the technology that brought the expanded reach and con-venience of online software to BSCs. The Cloud Delivers For BSCs Today’s cloud or shared-server technology allows bid data to be stored, secured and maintained on a remote server — freeing the user to log on via the Internet anytime to view, add to or edit the software. Here’s what Bob Kinsey of Kinsey Enterprises has to say about using online bidding software, “I’ve been in the janito-rial business for 22 years. I had a property manager approach me about bidding on a group of buildings. Putting together a proposal was going to be an all-day affair. Bidding and estimating is, arguably, the most important aspect of a building service contractor’s job, making any advances in convenience and accuracy welcomed. 34 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • June 2012
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