Construction Information Technology Blog

File Transfer – Building your own solution?

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There is an undeniable trend happening in the construction industry towards greater use of the internet for moving drawings, specifications and other documents. The use of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) by Architectural and Engineering teams is widespread. Contractors and Suppliers are receiving more and more information in digital format that they still need to share with others.When working out how to resolve this issue some are looking at the option of building their own in-house solution.

When considering this option it might be useful to ask yourself a few key questions:

• Are you confident that the solution you plan to spend time and money to build has a high probability of delivering the desired results?
  
  
• Are you confident that the actual working solution can be completed within the timescales for development and implementation that are initially predicted?
  
  
• Are you confident that the fully functional solution will be implemented for a cost that is controllable and acceptable?
  
  
• Are you confident that once implemented the cost of maintenance will not be an uncapped drain on your IT Department’s resources?
  
  
• Are you confident the solution will meet your requirements for speed, simplicity and security?

The harsh reality is that in many cases the actual solution finally provided will probably not achieve the original business objectives or savings in costs which made the project valid in the first instance. The inescapable conclusion is that where an existing solution exists, it should be used unless it can be demonstrated that it cannot handle the majority of the required business process. Few companies have the resources and energy it takes to build a fully functional solution. Wasting time, money and people resources on a non-core business activity to implement what seems like a fast and cheap solution is unlikely to make your business better.