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margin by 3%, reduce time to invoice by 20%, improve project margin by 5%, reduce your time to payment by 10%). 2. Benchmark today. Capture current performance: utilization, average realization, days to invoice, days to payment, billing backlog, number of manual setup hours per project. 3. Track after. After implementation monitor the same metrics quarterly. Use quantifiable gains to validate the investment and guide next steps. Also build in adoption and change metrics. Buying tech is the easy part. Making it deliver value depends on people using it and using it right. Know that new software requires adequate training of your entire team. It also necessitates changing existing habits, which takes time and effort. You can’t buy software, not invest in training and ongoing maintenance, and expect strong return on your investment. Make sure you dedicate the resources needed to make it a success. Common traps to avoid: ■ Treating tech as an expense with no link to business outcomes.

LUCAS GRAY, from page 11

funds strategic hires, specialist tools, and even improves acquisition-readiness if that is something your firm is looking for. When you evaluate a tech investment, ask: how will this change revenue per employee, realization rates, billing cycle, or project margin? And measure those before and after. PRODUCTIVITY ROI: TIME IS YOUR SCARCE RESOURCE. Technology often promises “efficiency,” but without clarity, the value remains vague: How many hours will you save? What will you do with them? At INC the shift mattered not just in numbers but in behavior. Project managers began using dashboards to monitor time, billing, and project progress weekly instead of relying on finance reports. The result: dozens of hours saved each month in manual project setup and billing tasks. That translated into time that the project teams used to explore design ideas and build stronger client relationships. For your firm, if you save 40 hours a month in administrative time, multiplied by the fully-loaded cost of those staff and you have a clear productivity return. Then ask: How can you redeploy that time to client work, business development, or innovation? In this scenario, you get more done with the same staff, and the return compounds. “When you choose the right tools, implement them well and measure their impact, tech becomes a multiplier for growth, profit, and culture.” STRATEGIC ROI: BUILDING CAPABILITY FOR TOMORROW. Technology also unlocks strategic value: better decision making, stronger culture, competitive differentiation. These returns are harder to quantify but no less real. At INC the leadership noted that the automation and real- time visibility helped junior staff become more financially fluent. They used realization rates and utilization metrics in performance reviews. That kind of cultural shift matters. When your people understand how their time, work, and deliverables translate into firm financial performance, you create a learning organization that builds up the next generation of firm leaders. Similarly, a tech investment that gives you forecasting tools or real-time dashboards helps you respond to situations faster. Opportunities and risks don’t surprise you. You are in motion, not just reacting. You can make smarter decisions backed in real time data. For an architecture or engineering firm facing tighter margins, an unstable economy, more competition, and higher client expectations going into 2026, this kind of capability is no longer optional. A SIMPLE THREE-STEP FRAMEWORK FOR YEAR-END EVALUATION. Use this framework to build your tech investment playbook now: 1. Define the outcomes. Before you buy anything, pick one or two key metrics you want to move (e.g., increase profit

■ Buying tools and then not measuring their impact.

■ Assuming time-savings automatically translate into billable time. ■ Ignoring adoption. Without adoption all the tech remains shelf-ware. WHY YEAR-END IS THE IDEAL MOMENT. Now is the moment to review current systems, ask hard questions, and prepare your budget for 2026. Try looking at the data throughout the year that can quantify the return on investment of your software tech stack. Many firms are planning without clear insight into how their tools have performed this year. With a data-driven ROI mindset, you turn budgeting from guesswork into strategy. When you align next-year tech investments with your firm’s mission, your financial health, and your people’s performance, you build capability. You turn an expense into an investment that will improve your firm’s financial performance. And in the AEC industry, where project complexity, talent competition, and client demands keep rising, capability wins. FINAL THOUGHT. Technology will not fix everything. But when you choose the right tools, implement them well and measure their impact, tech becomes a multiplier for growth, profit, and culture. The firms that thrive in 2026 will be those who treat technology like what it is: a strategic investment in their future. Lucas Gray leads content strategy at BQE Software, focusing on how smarter technology and stronger operations help architecture and engineering firms grow. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

THE ZWEIG LETTER DECEMBER 15, 2025, ISSUE 1613

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