Name: ConstructConnect Insight Forecast
Uploaded: 2025-06-18T19:16:03.528Z
Duration: 35 min 32 s
Description: ConstructConnect Insight Forecast

Transcript for "ConstructConnect Insight Forecast": Hello, and welcome today to our bid like a boss with the, ConstructConnect Insight. We are going to be going over the, insight and the forecast overview. I'm super excited to get have you here with us today. So just a little bit about myself. My name is Jessica Cymbala, and I'm a team lead over on the customer success side of things. I've been with the company for a really long time, back before we all merged together to be under ConstructConnect. And, so some of you may I've may have had the chance to get to know you. Some of you, I may not have. But, a couple just housekeeping things I wanted to kinda review with you. First of all, is everybody able to, there should be a little chat over here, and just message and, you can say hello over here. If you have any questions along the way, we definitely want this to be interactive. So definitely get on board. And, just one moment. I'm gonna see oh, hey. Yay. We've got some people on. Excellent. And Megan Kirby Kirby is actually gonna be joining me today. She's having a little bit of microphone trouble, so we'll give her just a second to log back in and get her microphone going. There she is. Hey. Good afternoon. And, There we go. From Miami. I love it. Well, I am down here in Texas, so, it is hot. I believe it is in Miami as well. I'm glad to have you guys all here with us, guys and gals alike. So Megan's gonna get her microphone working and then get on here and show us a little bit. Now, let's get to the next slide. So we'll just go over a little bit about what Insight forecast is. So, I love Insight and I love forecast. So what the forecast does is it actually provides you a detailed view of construction activity, including historical data and the current year projections. So you can get a five year forecast with it. It's also going to be forecasting tracks of 34 different specific categories of construction at national and subnational levels. That's including state, county, and MSA. And it also allows you to, construction at the it also allows you to save market views that are most important to your business and export the data for deeper analysis. And, I see Megan's on here and she doesn't have the little Yes. Yay. Can you hear me now? Yay. Yes. I love it. Tested it earlier and it was working. Awesome. Thanks, guys. I appreciate y'all being oh, North Carolina in the house. Awesome. I appreciate you guys. From everywhere, it looks like, today. Alabama. Where are you from, Megan? Where are you calling in from? I'm calling in from Cincinnati, Ohio. Nice. Nice. Well, I'll share some of our heat down here in Texas if you share some of that coolness. Is it cold or hot up there? Heat is actually, very humid today. It's, like, 82, but my windows are fogged up because it's just gross outside. So, as it does in the Midwest pretty frequently. So Yeah. I'm in Houston, and it's close to the, it's close to the coast. So same thing. It's like the humidity here is insane. So well, I was kinda just going over this slide right here, but I know you are the expert. And I'm actually wanted to do the enter to this because I wanna learn more about insight as well. So I'm super excited for today for you to give us all the lowdown. And if you wanna get into this a little bit more, please go ahead. Absolutely. Hi, everyone. And as just to kind of mirror what Jessica said, thank you so much for your patience. I actually spend most of my time with building product manufacturers. So I always get really excited when I get to come along to the contractor party a little bit. And then I do something like this where my wife worked five seconds ago and then it didn't. So I don't know how often I will be invited, but I'm happy to be here today. That being said, I work primarily again with our building product manufacturers. Where that's a little bit different from what you're used to seeing on, either CCPI or even just in one of our other leads products is our main goal as we work with these building product manufacturers is to get them specified. So that comes in a variety of different products and different forms and different reports. The biggest one being obviously leads, which you're seeing, but we also have a data analytics tool and a forecast tool. Alright. Jessica, if you can go to the next slide for me, please. So how does that work and why is that valuable? So we talk about leads being the here and now. Right? These are things that are coming up to bid in the next couple weeks, next couple years. It's got that detailed project information. It's got contact information. It's got company information. So making sure those are out in front of our, let's say, architectural reps or even our salespeople so they can get those boots on the ground and make sure their suppliers and distributors are well informed and ready to go in those areas and that these projects that they've been tracking for such a long time are moving along the way they've expected. Second piece being, our analyze tool. What that does is it really allows these building product manufacturers and their cohorts to, plan strategically. Right? Do we need to add another rep to a specific market? What have the trends been historically? Who is specifying me? Who is specifying my competitor? And let's target our sales and marketing campaigns to the appropriate people so we're really not spinning our wheels trying to figure out who those people are. Now what we're gonna talk about today is our forecast tool. This is really applicable to anyone across the construction industry in terms of who can use it, what you can use it for, and the value that comes along with it. It's really our largest, our most macro view of everything that's going on in the universe so you can understand market growth and kind of forecast where you may see changes based on what's going on in the economy. Okay. Ready for the next one. So what does that look like? How do we put this in front of you? Here's really the key functionality for that. The first one is we give you information that you can customize. Right? So, you know, if I manufacture windows or if I sell windows, I don't necessarily need to see where there's a bunch of concrete or, you know, if I complete work in this very specific area, I don't need to see anything outside of that. So we give you the ability to customize what it is you're looking at and how you want to measure that. The second is that we visualize it. We've got some really cool visuals on historical data and emerging trends. You can look at things by project value, project count, square footage if that's more your wheelhouse, and really dig in there and figure out, okay, where can I mitigate risk and kind of set my sights on expansion? That data is also exportable and downloadable. So you can do several different formats and Excel sheets. But part of the forecast product is we actually create, monthly starts and quarterly forecasting reports with our our in house economics team in partnership with some other folks I'm gonna talk to you about here in a second. And then lastly, just like a lot of the other ConstructConnect products, we can save those. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you log in. You can say, okay. I got a lot of really great information out of this report the last time I ran it. Let's go in and see what's happening this quarter or this month or however you wanna look at that information. Alright. So what makes our data unique? Why should you be interested in this? Canadian and US data, we partner with Oxford Economics. We also get a lot of information from the US Census Bureau in terms of permits that have been pulled, you know, what is the expected start date on those as well. And then, we also look at that information in a couple different ways, which is where that methodology piece comes in. ConstructConnect relies pretty heavily on methodology in terms construction starts in terms of methodology. So things like when the project is gonna start and how much money is allotted for that project in its entirety versus how much money is put in place each month in actuality. So we'll talk about that a little bit more here in a second. Next piece is your project granularity. So we've got 34 very specific types of construction projects that you can look at. Some of them have, underlying categories. Some of them are very straightforward. You've got your, civil, your residential, and your nonresidential construction that you can break into a number of different cohorts, so to speak. Geographic is our next one. You can look at things at on a national level, a state level, and an MSA. Meaning, here are some sales territories that a lot of folks use in our universe. Let's see if it applies to you. Right? So I'm in Cincinnati. That would include Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, Western Indiana would be, like, my MSA. Historical data. We have construction darts starts data going all the way back to 2010, and then we have five years of, forecast data as well. Do we need to go back to 2010 and look at that construction starts data? Probably not. But it gives us a really good idea of what's been growing and what's been shrinking over time. Lastly, it integrates nicely with the insight platform so you can click easily from forecast into analyzer into leads. But this data is also available in CCPI as well if that's something that you're using too. And lastly, we break the information out between new and renovation for United States data. Just in case you're one of those people who is really into retrofits or on the other side of that is really into new construction, you can divide those out pretty easily. Alright, Jessica. Next slide. There we go. Perfect. So what does that look like? I mentioned we use what we call starts the data versus put in place. So we take that information that we get. We identify trends and develop algorithms based on historical project data. That data, again, comes from the Census Bureau. It also comes from our platforms. Right? These are projects that we have information on. The second thing that we do with that data once we take a look at and say, okay. All of these projects have started. We know who the people are. We know what we need to do to move forward. Goes through a series of examination, so to speak, so we can identify what drivers are impacting construction. We will also break that down a little bit more into each category and each geographic area. You know, we'll take into consideration things like hurricanes. We'll take into consideration things like, oh, I don't know, tariffs that may impact how and where you're getting your materials. And and we're kind of looking at as an overarching view of what is happening in the construction space. The last piece of this is that we correct and we update. So we use error correction models to improve the accuracy of that data, both short term and long term. So we're actually updating historical data monthly and then historical and forecast data quarterly. With that, there comes a what we call a monthly forecast report or quarterly forecast report that examines that exactly as well. So we would go in, we would say, okay. Let's update the starts for the last month. Here's the numbers in actuality. Here are the economic drivers we're seeing impacting those changes, and here it is in a nice little easy to read report as well. Lastly, maintenance and updates. We really go back again and kind of review that information as we go just to make sure that everything is correct and we're accounting for changing conditions. Alright. So just to kind of talk through who these people are, Oxford Economics is one of the world's foremost independent providers of global economic research. So right now, if you were to Google Oxford Economics and go to news, you would find hundreds of articles about a range of different topics across almost 200 different countries about things that are going on in the economic space. Their information is used a lot in research and consulting. And I think that definitely shows in our data what that looks like as well. It was founded in 1981 with Templeton College, at Oxford University. We there are a 100 in house economists and analysts that we work with or not that we work with, but that work with Oxford. And, again, they provide economic information for a 190 companies, a 100 industries, and 2,600, locations, meaning corporations or research firms globally. Excellent. There we go. So I promise we're almost through the the economic talk, but this is really the having the background information will give you so much more power. Once we take a look at it, you'll say, oh, that makes sense. So a couple things that we look at on the ConstructConnect side. The first is monthly new building permits. I mentioned earlier, we work with the Census Bureau, but we're looking to see what permits have been actively pulled to make sure, again, that everything is on track, that those projects have actually started, and we're providing you all of the correct information. Again, just to reiterate, we use construction starts as a way to present our data, and I have one more slide after this that kind of walks through that. So what that means, it's the total dollar amount or total square footage depending on how you look at it of construction work started in The United States. So instead of it being broken out as it's completed, we're saying this project is worth this much money and then we adjust it as time goes on. We do look at lagging indicators like put in place. So your monthly estimates just to, again, make sure that all of our data is correct and there isn't something that we're missing. And then the last thing we look at is a lagging indicator's completions. What's finished, what's past inspection, and then it moves out into our historical data. Alright. I think this is my last one. But, obviously, this is from 2017, but this is the easiest way I've ever found to explain this. We've got a $12,000 project that was completed in 2017. It started in January and ended in December. Right? This project now would be worth something like, I don't know, $50,000. But we're looking at how much work was actually started versus how much work was done. K. That's the big thing when we're talking about the timing of where the money is accounted for and reported. Put in place spending is sometimes broken down by how much work is completed each month or which trades were completed each month, as we get through it. Right? So there's a big lag there in reporting because they have to wait to get those final tabulations. Alright? And then, again, starts will account for all of those monies when the project starts. So it would look something like this. In January, we've got our $12,000. You can break that out evenly over twelve months, whereas your put in place would be different amounts each month depending on what's being completed. All of that makes sense. Do we have any questions? I don't see any questions, but oh, here we go. Here's a question. Are these monthly and quarterly updates you mentioned part of the basic insight package or only available with the forecast and analyze? Sure. So it is actually a feature that is unique to analyze. We actually update our leads information as soon as we can get updates. So, we really wanna make sure that that information is up to date and correct. Typically, not always, but typically, we aim to have the previous month starts updated and forecast by the fifteenth of the following month. Okay. Wonderful. If there's any more questions, definitely put them in there for us. Alright. But I don't think right now. Okay. Let me go ahead, and I will share my screen and give you a quick overview of what this looks like. Alright. Screen. You're gonna see yourselves for a second while I get this pulled up. Actually, let me do this. I apologize, guys. Hey. It pulled up, but it's in the wrong there it is. Can you see that now? Oh, it's just light as I am light as I am. Seeing your other seeing your other screen. Okay. Hold on one second for me, and I will pull that up here. And there's another question. While you're pulling that up, I'll go ahead and read that. And it says, do you track starts? And I'm more interested in awards. Starts can lag for months with contractors wondering who received the award. Sure. Our award information is actually pulled from our leads database. So that is something we track, and it does carry over to forecast, and I can kinda show you how that works. But you'll find more valuable information on that in the lead section. K. Alright. Here we go. Okay. So some of you may be familiar with this view. We always land on the leads page when we log in. We are gonna pop in right here to our forecast session section for this session. When you log in, you will see a very simple set of filters over here on the left hand side. We'd like to keep them simple because it is really a macroeconomic view. Right? So we wanna say, okay. I wanna get a general idea of what's happening in these specific categories or these specific areas, but I don't necessarily need to drill down anymore because I'm getting that information elsewhere. So just to hop through these really quickly, you'll see your historical and historical and forecast. Again, just as a reminder, historical data is updated monthly. Historical and forecast data is updated quarterly. Your time period, and you'll see it goes all the way back to 2010, all the way out to 2029. You can look at things on an annual or quarterly basis. You can also toggle this button here back and forth to make your time frame more narrow or a little bit broader depending on what you look at and what trends you wanna track. Here's your geography. You can toggle back and forth between The United States and Canada. You've got a national view, a state view, an MSA view, and your county view. I forgot to mention that in my last slide. But you can go in here. You can select your geographies pretty quickly and easily depending on, you know, what you're clicking into. So if I wanted to go from state to county, all I would have to do is click that. And now I can go in, select my geographies here. K. So if I wanna look at Ohio, I can apply that. You'll see it changes pretty quickly. There's a little bit of a delay with Goldcast, but we're getting there. K. Here's our categories here. You'll see right now we just have a summary for civil, nonresidential, and residential construction. If I wanted to look at that in a different way, I can change it very quickly and easily. So let's say I'm not really interested in residential construction, I can click it, turn it off, and away it goes. I can also if I wanted to look at this in a more specific way. So my verticals will be my overarching categories, and then my subcategories will break that down even more. Still thinking. There we go. So a couple things you'll notice once you get into these category views, it does get a little noisy the more you add. So keeping these searches again kind of broad, is really helpful in making sure that we're defining and looking for the information we wanna see. If there are things we want to take off, again, all we've gotta do is click it here and it takes that category off right away. Or I can go over to my filters on the right and I can say, okay. Let's take a look at education. And it will pull that data for just education. Your measurements are here. Most people kinda stick with value, but if you wanted to look at square footage or just a number of projects, you can do that as well. And then lastly, here at the bottom, you can see your new versus or new versus renovation would be down here at the bottom. Now what does all of this mean? I've pushed all of these buttons. I've, you know, changed all of my settings around. Now what do I do with it? So here's a look, a visual of the information that we've pulled. Right? We're looking back 2020. Here's our dip. After COVID, it comes back up and through 2029, and it it's expected to kind of keep going up. If I scroll down here, this is where this information becomes extremely powerful. So if I pop open this category view here, I've also got that clicked here, it'll show me, okay, here's your education, here's how much work was completed, how many starts were added each year. K. To make this even better, we can go in and we can say, I wanna see the percentage of change year over year. So we can see things like between 2020 and 2021, spending on educational projects decreased 27%. And then as we go over, we can kind of see what that does to change. Right? So 67%, big jump there. I can keep scrolling, and it'll give me my forecast information as well here. If I wanted to break that down in a different way, let's say I wanna look at my counties that are in my territory, I can change that through from a category to a geography view, and you can see where the big projects are going. So this one here, you'll see almost what is that? 80000% increase in Allen, Ohio. If I'm being honest, I'm from Allen, Ohio and or I'm from Ohio, and I don't know where Allen, Ohio is. So what this will really allow you to do is say, okay. There have been some big projects here, but overall, maybe that's shrunk. Right? Maybe it's a blip on the radar. Maybe, you know, they had one big project in this teeny tiny county and that accounts for all of that change. One other thing we can do too with this, though, is looking at the historical data. We can now scan ourselves on out to the forecast data. So we can see between 2024 and 2025 with the expected growth. It's Columbus, I think. Right? 2027, it's expected to shrink a little bit. 2026 as well. And then from there, you'll see it continue to grow a little bit. Now any questions before I move on to the next piece? No? Okay. Questions for you? We're good? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I mentioned that all of this is exportable and all of this is savable. Here's your export button. We try and make it as easy as possible. You can do your standard export, which includes all of the columns that you have available, or you can do your formatted export, which is basically just the buttons I have pushed here. It will put you know, give you a customized Excel sheet to do that. So I will export that so you can see what it looks like. It'll let us know as soon as it's done. Let's say I really like this search and I want to save it. All of your saved searches woah. Come on back. All of your saved searches will be located up here in the corner. There we go. I'm getting too close to that scroll bar. So you'll be able to pull them down pretty quickly and easily here. You can also save searches really easily as well down here at the bottom. So if I come here and scroll down, you'll see that little save button there, and then those searches will populate here at the top. There are additionally some different views that you can take a look at. So if I click into these, you will see your growth year over year. Uh-oh. I may have given it too many assignments, and now it's like, excuse me. What are you doing? So you can really look at that at in in any way you would like to look at it. These you can also export these pictures or take screenshots of these to use in presentations, which we see lots of folks do. Here's our document. While that's thinking, I will show you what that looks like. K. So just like I've mentioned, it goes right into an Excel sheet. And from here, you can manipulate it in any way you need to or want to. Let me share it one more time. Sorry. And then my favorite part are your reports. So if you come here, here's your monthly starts report. Some of you may have seen this or something that looks like it. Right? So here's our April numbers. We're expecting our May numbers any day now. It'll tell you what the period is, how much construction was started through that period, where the breakdown is, and then it really outlines some trends we're seeing. Right? So what what's going on that's unique? What does that look like? Everything from employment through cost of goods, all of that will be listed here. And then your quarterly forecast report, same general idea. It's just much more robust. So you can go here. Right? You can see what that looks like. It's got links to our latest economic webinars too. And you can take that information and dissect it in any way that you need to or want to. Any questions on that part? No. See any questions in the question chat. Sure. So, that's really it in its overview and it's in its most basic form. Yes. Just a couple things to add to that. We offer, we offer two economic webinars each year. Some of you may have ended up here based on that, but that comes as part of this package. Actually, that comes for free for any ConstructConnect users. But all of that information is broken down and saved in our specification resources. We also have a ConstructConnect blog that highlights a lot of the issues that are top of mind for anyone in the construction industry. And then also one last shameless plug is if you do not file follow, Michael Gokas on insta or not Instagram. My goodness. My brain's everywhere today. On LinkedIn, he has some wonderful tidbits of information that he shares almost daily. He I believe he calls it the construction minute, and it's just that, hey. Here's what we're seeing this week. Here's what our project stress index looks like, and here's what you can expect to see. And I saw that what's his name? Michael Gacris. There you go. Okay. And if you have a oh, sorry. I was gonna say, if you wanted to, get more you know, if you wanted to have a private demonstration with us or get more information or have any questions or would like to talk to your customer success manager about getting, insight for yourself, for your company, there's a little button up there that says get a demo. So you can just click on that, and that will let us know that, we'll get your customer success manager in touch with you. So, definitely click on that if you'd like more information, and follow Michael as well. And, appreciate you guys coming. And I'm so sorry, Megan. Did you have more more to cover? No. That's it. No. I appreciate your time. And just to Jessica's point, if you wanna see it, click that get a demo button or feel free to reach out to me as well, megan.curvy@constructconnect.com, and I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have. Absolutely. Thank you all so much for coming. That was so informative, Megan. I learned so much. It's amazing, how much information and the resources we have here at the company. We're so so full and so broad. So yeah. Thank you guys for, coming today, and, hopefully, we'll see you again soon. Bye.