Real estate developers are hiring tech firms and harnessing big data to mitigate the influence of increasing input prices via accurate forecasting of demand and placing orders with the right set of vendors at the right time. The firms are doing predictive analysis, utilising procurement data of the past five years and expected demand from the upcoming projects, to help decision-making and conserve prices.The costs are changing repeatedly. But a substantial amount can be saved by ordering at the right time - and from the right place, as per Naren Vijay, Executive Vice President, Lumenore, a unified business intelligence and analytics platform. Developers told the media that the steel cost has more than doubled and cement by about 38% in the past two years due to which the cost of construction has increased by at least Rs 500 per sq ft. Developers have started to adopt tech and utilise advanced technologies in cost management to measure the demand and plan their procurement strategies accordingly, according to Saurabh Sharma, India director of David Adamson Group, a UK-based international construction consultancy. Technologies such as BIM are assisting developers to stay ahead of the curve and pre-empt the requirements of the project accordingly. Increasing crude costs and disruptions in the supply chain have brought a lot of financial stress to the construction industry. Costs of construction materials have skyrocketed, leading to cost overruns in several construction projects. Advanced techniques like predictive analytics have attained traction in the industry. By utilising historical data, machine learning techniques, and statistical algorithms, predictive analytics can recognise the likelihood of future events, as per Aditya Kushwaha, CEO and Director, Axis Ecorp, which is implementing data-analysis mandates for real estate projects. These models are presently also being utilised to ascertain the movement of raw materials costs. Image Source Also read: The domino effect of price rise on the construction industry