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While ServiceTitan initially started out as a comprehensive software for residential service providers, the future will see the company going all-in on building solutions for the construction industry.
“As we think about where ServiceTitan goes over the next decade, it's become clear that for us to achieve our mission—which is to become the operating system of the trades—we had to solve for construction, it's just a no-brainer,” says Vahe Kuzoyan, ServiceTitan Co-founder, during a 2023 Pantheon session on innovation in the construction industry.
Kuzoyan talked about how ServiceTitan plans to invest heavily in 2024 to bring construction solutions to market. He says ServiceTitan will create value for construction companies in two key ways.
“If you look at what happens after that initial build, most of the work gets handed away to the competition to then capture the service side of the opportunity,” Kuzoyan says.
“So when we think about how we can add value to construction contractors, it’s about allowing the company that builds the units to ultimately become the long-term servicer of those units.”
As we think about where ServiceTitan goes over the next decade, it's become clear that for us to achieve our mission—which is to become the operating system of the trades—we had to solve for construction, it's just a no-brainer.”
Kuzoyan says ServiceTitan will also provide value to construction companies by connecting all aspects of running their businesses, while current construction software provides more of a point solution.
“We’ve looked at most of the construction software that exist today and many of them are basically accounting systems that have a couple of features attached. You need to be able to do much more, especially customer-facing,” Kuzoyan says.
“There were a lot of agreements in the audience about that comment.”
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After the introduction, Kuzoyan passed the microphone to Mark Weeks, ServiceTitan’s Director of Product Management, to walk through updates on the 2024 roadmap to benefit construction companies.
“You heard from Vahe about the commitment we’re making to construction,” Weeks says. “We're going to look at how that investment translates in terms of product functionality. But rather than focus on what's available today, this conversation is really going to be more future-oriented and look at where we’re going with ServiceTitan.”
Project Portfolio
Construction companies frequently juggle multiple projects in various stages of completion, not to mention subcontractors and crews.
The project portfolio feature provides a comprehensive view of all projects and progress—with real-time insights as to which projects need your attention. Users will be able to filter or group projects based on status, customer, or project manager.
Weeks also talked about a new document-management feature that will be part of the Project Portfolio, which will make it easier for all parties involved in a construction project to seamlessly access and share key project documents.
“We really want to focus on giving you capabilities to improve the way you organize and share your construction documents,” Weeks says. “Maybe it's your plans or specifications, it could be your permits, it could be progress photos or safety forms. We’re investing in this area to help you better manage your construction documents and give you the capabilities to share that information with the appropriate people on your team, whether that’s your staff, subcontractors, or other project partners.”
Workflow Automation
ServiceTitan’s planned workflow-automation features will reduce manual tasks and repetitive processes while providing automatic triggers based on predefined rules. Weeks offered a couple of examples of how automation can work for construction companies. For instance, companies that use progress billing can set triggers based on phases of completion to automatically notify their billing departments to send an invoice. He also mentioned how a construction company can set a trigger to file for rebates based on completing specific milestones in a large-scale project.
“There are a lot of common tasks that require manual effort today. We want to let you create rules that eliminate repetitive tasks—and workflow automation lets you focus on high-value tasks,” Weeks says.
“Let’s take these things off your team’s plate, so they can focus on what truly matters to your business.”
New Field Mobile App
While it’s common to see a residential HVAC or plumbing tech use a mobile tablet in the field to update a project status, communicate with dispatch, and access critical documents and photos, construction workers rarely use tablets at the worksite.
“We built this for the phone, not a tablet. We know your crews may not even have access to a tablet,” Weeks says. “We’ve optimized the experience for the phone, to help improve crew productivity.”
Weeks says timekeeping in ServiceTitan historically has been based on dispatch actions: dispatching a technician to a job, arrival, and job completion. New functionality in the mobile app will expand on the dispatch fields and actions and allow crews to more accurately track their time based on highly specific tasks.
“When you're on a project site and you're switching between tasks, that workflow doesn't always fit your needs,” Weeks says.
“You need a more flexible timekeeping experience so you can enter time throughout the day related to different tasks your crew works on.”
Weeks says the new timekeeping functionality also improves payroll and provides a more accurate picture of project profitability.
“What's really exciting is not just that you're making sure you're paying out appropriately based on the specific geographies and specific tasks that are applicable to the project, but all of that information then flows back into ServiceTitan,” Weeks says.
“When you look at your job cost information, you'll see the complete picture. Not just the raw rate you're paying to your staff, but the fully burdened labor rate.”
Weekly Dispatch Board
Weeks talked about how ServiceTitan’s dispatch board is used primarily for daily scheduling but construction projects often span weeks or months. The soon-to-be-released weekly dispatch board allows construction companies to better allocate capacity across multiple projects.
“We understand you're planning week over week, month over month,” Weeks says.
“We're really excited that we have a new weekly dispatch board that’s going to allow you to plan over a long-term time horizon and ensure you understand how to allocate your capacity across all of your project commitments, so you have the right people in the right place at the right time.”
Weeks also mentioned how the second iteration of the new dispatch board, scheduled for later in 2024, will include the option to view long-term schedules as a Gantt chart, providing a new way to visualize scheduling and capacity planning.
Parent Projects
With the new parent projects feature, construction companies can better manage large-scale projects by grouping smaller jobs together that roll up to the main, parent project. It provides users with detailed visibility—including jobs, tasks, and dependencies—across multiple phases.
“This is another area we're leaning into and providing you with that visualization of your schedule,” Weeks says. “And not just high-level, but being able to expand on that, and seeing the jobs and tasks associated with each phase that make up the overall project. We're really excited to work with you on this next level of scheduling and planning capabilities and functionality.”
As the session drew to a close, Kuzoyan returned to the stage to reiterate ServiceTitan’s commitment to building end-to-end software for the construction sector.
“It's only going to grow. We’re increasing our R&D budget for construction and commercial over next year," Kuzoyan says. “Expect the pace of innovation to grow even faster as we move forward.”
