At its core, Tracecost is about solving a problem and reducing error

Prabh Paul, Co-Founder and COO of Tracecost Inc. talks to Leandra Monteiro, explaining the idea behind the inception of Tracecost and what sets it apart from just another proptech company.   Could you give us a brief history about the inception of the brand. What was the concept behind building this software, Tracecost? Tracecost Inc. is a venture by professionally-qualified architects, technology experts and real estate professionals, all of who bring deep domain expertise, exposure and wisdom of global markets. We are individually and collectively well-recognised, accepted and regarded among our peers. In our experience, the rapidly increasing demand for timely delivery of projects is primarily driving the global infrastructure market towards reengineered processes and technologies. Various industrial segments that are part of global infrastructure sector are adopting automation systems to reduce labour burden, consequently making the market grow at a significant pace. However, infrastructure industry in India has not adopted automation as per global standards and still sticks to manual processes. This is the primary reason for slow growth in the unorganised sector of Infrastructure in India. We at Tracecost Inc., having worked in the same industry for decades, have worked hard to decipher the key reasons for the Indian industry to not adapt itself, and not make use of globally available project management solutions. After understanding the root causes, we have created an innovative solution in Tracecost that shows remarkable benefits when compared to manual processes. We believe our project management automation solution can ensure much faster delivery of projects compared to current schedules.   What are the additional services and products that you offer under your portfolio? Tracecost Inc. is a technology company that offers specialised products and services for construction and infrastructure companies, including Process consulting, Analytics Services, Custom Development Services and Cloud Management. Our products cover all aspects of project execution: including finance and controlling, production planning, project system, inventory and materials management, sales & distribution, procurement and recruitment.   What are the key objectives behind developing a project management software for construction industry? How do you think this will help transform the infrastructure industry? At its core, Tracecost is about solving a problem and reducing error by reliably offloading manual work done by a human to a machine. The goal is to reduce time-consumed, repetitive and routine work, and to maximize the repeatability and predictability of results. We believe that this solution is indispensable for the construction industry. Workflow fragmentation in large projects frequently leads to workers spending more time searching for, and aggregating information than working. Tracecost helps get updates from the team, produce key reports, raise triggers and alerts when problems were detected. We can now unobtrusively collect metadata and look at how team members do their jobs. A lot of predictions can be made by analysing the habits, the communication, the focus, the time spent on task, and other attributes of the person responsible for doing the work. Today, managing large projects involves multiple rounds of stakeholder feedback, quality control tests, and input from multiple members of the project team. In fact, communication is one of the trickiest areas for a project manager to master. While software already exists to correct grammar, Tracecost includes specialised algorithms to help identify potentially problematic phrases, and improve accuracy and truthfulness for stakeholder communication. It also mitigates need for multiple and disparate software. Currently, teams frequently use one software application to manage project tasks and resources, a second application to communicate updates and share documents with each other, third to track project time and expenses, and fourth to perform quality control checks. Stakeholder feedback is typically sent via email. Teams are responsible for aggregating and synthesizing all these disparate pieces in order to effectively move the project forward in a way that contemplates all of the stakeholder feedback. Tracecost combines all these tasks and processes into one single, cohesive platform that automatically resolves complex issues with a simple, easy-to-use solution.   Could you please help us understand the overview of the business, it's vision and expansion plan in India? We have keenly studied some of the government of India’s marque projects such as Digital India, Make in India, Smart Cities, Housing for all and initiative such as RERA, that worked wonders in both driving and benefitting from automation in the infrastructure industry. We are betting big on the future economic and infrastructure growth of our country and are committed to growing together with India’s infrastructure industry. We are always on the lookout for opportunities to further develop and refine our solutions with like-minded partners from public and private sector. For us, India is the most important market with a massive growth potential. Our country has a competitive and well-qualified talent pool, which will continue to draw global companies in the future just as it has in the last few decades. We are very optimistic about continued India expansion plans of global companies, which will necessitate development of new infrastructure not just in Tier-1 cities but also in Tier 2 and smaller cities as well. We firmly believe our growth is directly linked to growth in the infrastructure sector. With validated data available for all to see, the growth potential is no doubt exponential.   What are the key challenges faced by the infrastructure industry? According to the consulting firm Accenture, by 2020, construction activities in emerging markets will account for 55% of global output and touch USD $6.7 trillion. However there are many challenges that the Indian Infrastructure industry today faces such as:  

1. Poor Productivity: This occurs from a wide range of issues, including: idle time due to late or insufficient supply shipments; construction vehicles breaking down; frequent inclement weather; design complications arising midway during construction; friction between the different stakeholders (e.g., owner and contractor).
2. Rising Cost of Materials: Be it tariffs, trade conflicts, inflation or increasing global demand, the cost of construction materials is rising. Between 2017 and 2018, material costs rose 5.3%
3. Poor Project Performance: The factors above have two major impacts on the performance of construction projects: the risk of going over budget and the risk of failing to deliver within specified timelines.
4. Skilled Labour Shortage: The labour gap cuts across multiple areas, including mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers, civil engineers, architects, skilled trades, HVAC technicians, and plumbing.
5. Sustainability & Efficiency: The United Nations (UN)stated that the building industry possessed the “most potential for delivering significant and cost-effective GHG (greenhouse gas) emission reductions. This will be essential as energy efficiency gains will help lower long-term operating costs and emissions.