In brief:
- Probably the most dependable solution to know: monitor specification percentage, which means how incessantly your merchandise are named in undertaking paperwork when compared together with your competition.
- Why it issues: specification percentage strikes earlier than gross sales do, so it is an early learn on the place your marketplace percentage is heading
- How you can do it: ConstructConnect® Analytics’ Specification Positioning dashboard tracks how incessantly your merchandise are specified, and the way that compares to key competition, throughout architects, geographies and undertaking varieties.
- Who can use it: any individual for your group. No analytics experience required.
You’ll pull up closing quarter’s gross sales in a minute. Era makes it really easy this present day to determine what you bought up to now, however what the ones PowerBI dashboards and spreadsheets reviews cannot inform you is whose product architects wrote into the drawings six months in the past, and that’s the place the following day’s gross sales get made up our minds.
In case you are questioning whether or not a competitor is quietly pulling forward on specs, you are asking the best query.
Now, here is the way to find the solution.
How Do I Know if a Competitor’s Product is Being Specified Greater than Mine?
Get started with the best dimension. Laborious gross sales numbers inform you about what’s already bought. Specification percentage, then again, tells you the place your gross sales are headed. It presentations how incessantly your merchandise are named in undertaking paperwork, earlier than any individual buys the rest.
Here is a easy solution to learn it with ConstructConnect Analytics:
Arrange seek tags on your merchandise and your competition’ merchandise. Outline tags for particular person merchandise, product traces or your logo, then upload competitor tags along them. Stay the tags constant so every length is analogous.
Get started with the AI abstract. It reads your filtered effects and calls out the developments and aggressive shifts price your consideration.
Kind the Specification Proportion Comparability via development path. The place are competition trending up if you are flat or slipping? That is your early caution.
Evaluate percentage via state, then take a look at the alternate towards the prior length. Have a look at the tasks in the back of any shift, too. Emerging percentage on a couple of massive tasks is a special tale than emerging percentage throughout many small ones.
Zoom in at the account. Seek Tag Insights presentations how your stored seek tags monitor throughout an organization’s tasks, together with what number of matching tasks flip up general and within the closing twelve months.
Make it a dependancy. Reviewing spec percentage per month, and regional developments quarterly, is most often sufficient to catch a competitor’s momentum whilst there may be nonetheless time to reply.
Do not stay up for the quarterly document
For plenty of producers, figuring out spec percentage approach looking ahead to any individual to collect a quarterly document that displays the place you stood 3 months in the past. By the point it lands, selections had been made and competition have moved. Analytics updates often, so you already know you’re taking a look at a are living view of the place your merchandise are being written into specifications, no longer a snapshot.
Why a Robust Marketplace Does not Imply You might be Successful it
Whilst information headlines duvet the details, the real intel is in the main points. Right here’s a just right instance: ConstructConnect Information reported that, via September 2026, U.S. nonresidential development begins have been up 34.7% year-to-date . Additional on within the article, ConstructConnect Leader Economist Michael Guckes notes the “workplaces” class (which lately contains knowledge facilities), equipped 72% of that achieve. If you’re taking “workplaces” out of the document, begins have been nonetheless up 11.2%, with warehouses, hospitals and clinics, and army building all posting beneficial properties.
What this implies is that you simply will have to all the time be:
Studying the marketplace at multiple point
Then checking out the geography of the marketplace towards tasks, product have compatibility, and the specification trail
Asking the similar query about your personal merchandise. When a class grows, have you learnt who is getting specified on that enlargement? If a competitor is shooting extra of it, you want to grasp now, and no longer after the quarter closes.
What to Monitor: a Quick Record Beats a Huge Dashboard
You are not looking for each metric below the solar. Those 4 metrics duvet maximum of what a producer’s management group must find out about marketplace place:
Metric | What it tells you |
Specification percentage via tag | Whether or not you are gaining or dropping specifications towards competition |
Spec percentage via state | Which territories want consideration |
Venture rely, price and moderate price | How the marketplace is transferring via class and area |
Conversion on specified tasks | What number of specifications grow to be gross sales |
To find Out Who is Doing the Specifying
You realize getting a product specified begins smartly earlier than bid day. The specification conversations occur on the design level, and, via bid day, the ones selections are incessantly already made. So, when a competitor pulls forward, the following query is: whose drawings are their merchandise appearing up on?
The Specification Positioning dashboard breaks spec job out via architect, geography and undertaking sort, and it attracts on knowledge for 200,000+ architects and engineers with specification historical past. Use it to toughen relationships with the architects who already specify you maximum, and to focus on segments the place competition are outpacing you.
The Specification Proportion Comparability does not simply display spec percentage. It presentations which corporations are riding spec percentage. To find the architects with the best possible spec quantity on your class, then ask: which of them will we already know, and which can be specifying competition with out ever listening to from a rep? One click on takes you to an organization web page with contacts and up to date tasks, so the decision checklist builds itself.
Filtering via geography is helping, too. Markets the place undertaking quantity is excessive, however your spec percentage is low are markets the place reps will have to be development architect relationships now, earlier than the ones tasks transfer previous the design section.
To get a better take a look at a particular corporate in ConstructConnect Analytics, the Corporate Connections tab presentations a company’s maximum widespread collaborators, together with architects, normal contractors and house owners , at the side of every corporate’s position and the selection of tasks they have shared. Right here’s a walkthrough of the usage of Corporate Connections, from ConstructConnect’s YouTube:
ConstructConnect Analytics is Constructed to be Utilized by Your Whole Staff
Whilst many industry intelligence equipment simply display you charts, ConstructConnect Analytics is constructed to inform you the tale in the back of them:
AI-generated summaries replace together with your converting filters and flag what’s other
Stored Dashboards permit you to go back to the similar view with out rebuilding it.
You’ll additionally cross from a high-level view to in-depth undertaking main points in a single click on.
Which of Your Staff Contributors Will have to be Taking a look at Specification?
Specification is not only a gross sales fear. Any person who touches enlargement has a stake:
House owners and bosses can see the place the economic building marketplace is heading and the place to take a position subsequent.
VPs of gross sales, advertising and technique can deliver actual marketplace knowledge to territory making plans and quarterly industry critiques. Spec job via product tag additionally presentations which traces have momentum and which can be fading earlier than you devote subsequent 12 months’s price range to product advertising or rep protection.
Gross sales managers and architectural reps can pinpoint which architects and engineers specify merchandise like theirs, and which of them have not but.
Advertising groups can intention campaigns and messaging on the segments the place competition lately dominate, and notice which product traces are gaining or dropping fashion designer attention.
Base line, since gross sales and advertising base their paintings round the similar details, when effects wish to be shared, you’ll be able to export insights for displays, reviews, and CRM updates.
How Can You See Your Spec Proportion Proper Now?
The quickest solution to know whether or not a competitor is being specified greater than you is to have a look at your exact marketplace. Agenda a ConstructConnect Analytics Demo with us, deliver your personal territory, and we’re going to display you your specification percentage via state.
Ceaselessly Requested Questions (FAQ)
What’s specification percentage?
Specification percentage is in response to how incessantly your merchandise are named in undertaking paperwork, when compared with competing merchandise.
What is the distinction between spec percentage and marketplace percentage?
Marketplace percentage is in response to gross sales. Specification percentage is in response to how incessantly your merchandise are named in undertaking paperwork. Spec percentage strikes first, which makes it an early learn on the place marketplace percentage is heading.
How incessantly will have to I take a look at whether or not a competitor is gaining on me?
Per 30 days for spec percentage and begins quantity, and quarterly for regional developments and forecasts. Take a look at extra incessantly all through a product release or a pointy swing in regional job.
Can I monitor a couple of product traces and competition without delay?
Sure. You’ll outline tags for particular person merchandise, product traces or logo phrases, and upload a couple of competitor tags along them to benchmark in the similar view.
Do I want a knowledge analyst to trace competitor specification?
No. Analytics is constructed so folks throughout your company can interpret the knowledge with out analytical experience, and AI-generated summaries spotlight insights robotically.
What knowledge is in the back of it?
Analytics attracts on 825,000+ verified tasks and a pair of million+ searchable plans and specs, with about 15,000 new U.S. and Canadian tasks added each month. Information is refreshed day by day.
