BuildOps' Alok Chanani on rewiring commercial contracting

BuildOps co-founder and CEO Alok Chanani described moving from Army combat engineer and officer—leading troops in Baghdad—to commercial real-estate development, investment, and construction. Working with trade contractors and facility managers, he saw companies performing essential infrastructure work through WhatsApp, Dropbox, Google, text messages, outdated software, and manual processes. The inefficiency was not limited to small firms; even larger companies lacked effective automation. He founded BuildOps in 2018 to replace these fragmented tools with an operations platform focused on service and project management, which he said drives profitability, growth, and EBITDA.

Chanani said BuildOps was designed as an all-in-one platform rather than another set of siloed point solutions, with analytics layered on top of unified operational data. A change in a job-site condition, material order, or schedule can affect staffing and downstream customer commitments, making labor the most complex component to manage. The platform maps job requirements, skills, and certifications instead of relying on job titles. It helps contractors identify which attributes correlate with technician revenue, profitability, and customer-success outcomes three months, six months, nine months, or five years into a role.

Chanani said BuildOps deliberately hired dispatchers, contractors, and technicians who had experienced the industry’s administrative friction, then paired them with strong technical and product staff. That combination produced workflows that field workers understood, including capturing equipment data from nameplates. Customers typically arrive after missing opportunities, invoicing late, fighting constant calls, or finding that growth is not matching expectations; some are also handling a generational transition. BuildOps asks how work and handoffs actually happen, identifies where information is lost, and implements the platform collaboratively over roughly three to six months.

Asked about veterans’ transferable skills, Chanani said the move from military service to entrepreneurship was both messy and humbling. The military supplies a clear mission and structure; in business, leaders must create those themselves. He carried over clarity, trust, and “extreme ownership,” learned from veterans who had made the transition, and rejected the idea that military leadership is merely barking orders. Leaders must explain the objective, provide resources, support teams under pressure, and then get out of the way. He compared startups to combat: once contact—or a customer’s unexpected demand—happens, the plan changes.

Chanani said the largest customer benefits are labor utilization and reduced administrative work. One customer cut technician downtime by more than 40% through better dispatch and scheduling without changing headcount. BuildOps also reduces re-entering job information, chasing purchase orders, reconciling quote versions, and processing payroll; payroll time sometimes falls 70%, 80%, or 90%, while invoices can go out the same day or within 24–48 hours rather than at week’s end or month’s end. Its AI-assisted smart dispatch considers skills, past performance, similar jobs, location, time-on-site history, revenue, and equipment type.

Chanani said AI became useful only after BuildOps had clean, structured data and a clear understanding of how contractors work. Some leaders eagerly test new features, while others want technology fully mature; adoption depends more on leadership’s risk tolerance than company size. A planned GPT-like mobile interface lets less-experienced technicians photograph their work and receive real-time guidance. Chanani argued that the skilled-labor gap is too large for trade schools and federal funding alone to close, so the practical goal is helping existing workers become more productive, ramping juniors faster, and showing clearer paths to advancement.

Looking ahead, Chanani said BuildOps is combining generative AI and machine learning to anticipate operational problems rather than merely report them. Planned capabilities include flagging project risks before they escalate, identifying skills gaps before job quality suffers, and recommending assignments that strengthen teams rather than simply fill schedules. The company is also watching micro-credentials and portable training, with real-time skill tracking that can signal when someone is ready to advance or needs a refresher. Chanani said cloud infrastructure, smartphones, and COVID-era technology adoption made this product feasible, and expects the labor crunch to persist.