While embracing new construction technologies can beef up a firm’s thin profit margins, many contractors are still shy about some tech such as Building Information Modeling, so they just aren’t using it.

Fear might be holding them back. The view of BIM as a powerful project management tool could be scaring some folks from adopting. It’s their loss; contractors and owners increasingly are requiring BIM for projects. Not having BIM capability now means not being able to pursue all of the projects a firm would like to win.

Nearly a third of respondents to the recently published JBKnowledge’s 2017 Construction Technology Report said they do not bid on BIM projects, and only 27 percent of respondents reported having a dedicated BIM/VDC department. Just 25 percent of respondents said only one or two of their company’s employees were trained to work on BIM projects.

Though adoption of Building Information Modeling is being mandated in the United Kingdom, and continental European countries are following suit by encouraging its adoption, the transition isn’t being accomplished as cleanly for some firms in the US. Even with the UK marching forward in adopting the newest iterations of BIM, US market research indicates many companies aren’t bidding on BIM projects because they don’t have BIM expertise.

Part of the problem could be that as BIM continues to improve as a technology, it’s not becoming any easier. Actually, the tool is becoming more complicated.

Nonetheless, there’s no getting around adopting BIM, at least for companies that want to stay competitive. They will have to do it and the longer they wait, the less competitive they will be. That’s because worldwide, many others are adopting BIM and the trend is expected to continue.

The frequency of BIM use across the world will increase for years to come, according to Transparency Market Research: “The presence of favorable government policies in various developing and developed nations has boosted the uptake of BIM solutions. For instance, the Government of Russia has recently approved a roadmap for the implementation of BIM across different stages of the life cycle of any capital facility. This will increasingly pave the way for strategic development of building information modeling solutions for numerous civil construction projects in the nation. The demand for digitization of construction projects among policymakers in several countries of Europe is also expected to catalyze the growth of the building information modeling market.”

According to Transparency Market Research, the global building modeling market was $2.7 billion in 2014, and is expected to reach a valuation of $11.5 billion by 2022. So, it seems that if American companies don’t mirror their European competitors by adopting BIM, they will end up losing to those competitors in the competition for new work.

While adopting a new technology can seem daunting, it needn’t be. Companies can collaborate with Rhumbix to create their own custom workflows, reports, and integrations.