B2W Software, the heavy construction application suite vendor acquired by Trimble in September of 2022, is unveiling new product functionality at CONEXPO-CON/AGG, March 14-18, 2023 in Las Vegas in the Trimble Stand (#N12147) in the center of the north hall.
A Heavy Construction Software Stalwart
B2W got its start in estimating, and like other software companies serving heavy, civil and other types of contractors, has extended the data and solution into subsequent stages of the project lifecycle. IRONPROS debriefed B2W in March and June of 2022.
“Estimating was our original product,” B2W Marketing Communications Director Greg Norris said. “But we knew that once our customer wins the bid, they need to track the jobs in the field. So, we added field tracking software. Then we added scheduling and dispatching, and software to maintain the equipment.”
But the company, employs between 100 and 120 people had been self-standing with no venture funding. The mission was never, according to Norris, about to try to be everything to all contractors.
“We are remaining focused on heavy highway contractors, and expanding within our existing customer base,” Norris said. “We are focused on continuous growth but have not expanded beyond our expertise … we have not gone into accounting, or other peripheral fields.”
For equipment maintenance, B2W Maintain focuses on maintenance inspections and preventive maintenance while connecting maintenance schedules to project workflows to maximize equipment utilization.
READ THE IRONPROS B2W SOFTWARE PRODUCT DEEP DIVE
Net New Functionality
Enhancements will be highlighted at CONEXPO/CON-AGG include:
- Enhanced employee hours and equipment meter readings, including clock-in-clock-out functionality and GPS confirmation of location are now in the B2W mobile app for individual time and performance tracking.
- B2W Estimate has new tools to manage and compare quotes from vendors and subcontractors. The B2W Estimate API has been extended for even more interoperability with other applications and data sources that support the estimate.
- A variety of transactions and conditions in B2W applications can now trigger an instant message or other immediate communication. Management teams may find it helpful to automate these notifications for scheduling, field operations or fleet maintenance events such as safety incidents, schedule assignments and updates, field log or timecard status changes, maintenance requests or work order completion.
- Expanded connectivity between B2W Schedule and B2W Track applications increases opportunities to populate field logs with information from the schedule and to communicate personnel, equipment and material needs from the field tracking application to the scheduling and dispatching application.
- New export functionality in the B2W Maintain maintenance management application makes it easier to reconcile purchase order information with Viewpoint and other accounting programs.
B2W’s Role in the Trimbleverse
In the days immediately following Trimble’s acquisition of B2W, company officials were stressing continuity, suggesting not much will immediately change for the B2W Software product and its customers. B2W will be joining the Trimble Construction One product line along with Viewpoint and other acquired and organically-grown products.
The net new functionality slated for CONEXPO-CON/AGG and interviews with Trimble Construction One product management indicate that the B2W product will be the default estimating solution for heavy contractors, plugging a crucial hole in the offering.
Heavy contractors doing due diligence, looking under the hood and kicking tires of estimating and operations software products will also want to follow what looks like a move towards a more cloud-centric architecture, subscription pricing and delivery model. This could be significant because B2W had been selling the majority of its new accounts as of 2022 had been on-premise, perpetual license deals.
Sources at Trimble indicated any move to a subscription-based model or software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture would make allowances for customers currently on a perpetual license and running on-premise.
IRONPROS INSIGHTS: SELECTING ESTIMATING SOFTWARE
Some parts of the B2W product could also become central to the experience of users of Trimble Siteworks, which connects Connected equipment controllers, antennae and other devices and equipment in the field.
“We are interested in the operational functionality as well, and we see potential to tie our connected devices into that,” Potgeiter said. “A lot of the field solutions are now flowing into a centralized application—they are more like point solutions. We have never had this potential aggregator for all of our field devices. This could acquire data from Siteworks, our surveying applications and capture progress into our operational suite.”
BOTTOM LINE: IRONPROS and ForConstructionPros are looking forward to seeing the B2W product develop at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2023 and beyond. It is encouraging to see new functionality so soon after an acquisition. Normally, there is a "dark night of the soul" following such an acquisition as organizations meld, the real challenges of absorbing the technology into an existing offering become clear and any pro forma assumptions go out the window. This stuff is complicated and takes time, and there is risk that products may be dropped, de-prioritized or replaced with something that presents significant functionality giveback. Even customers on the Viewpoint product line, acquired by Trimble in 2018, reported passing through this limbo. Anyone who has gone through the turmoil and uncertainty that results following an enterprise software company acquisition will look at B2W Software right now and get the sense that Trimble is getting pretty good at onboarding acquisitions. And current and future B2W customers can look forward to continuing investment in their user experience.
