Following the blog What Does Free Really Get You? AVAIL’s Response to Autodesk’s Acquisition of UNIFI posted in March 2024, CEO and Founder at content management system (CMS) AVAIL, Randall Stevens, tackles a similarly critical AEC industry issue: firms piecing together “free,” single-point solutions. Not only do these solutions often lack content management capabilities that can save your BIM management team time, but having multiple solutions instead of a single streamlined one can also be difficult for your designers and other end-users to follow. Explore Randall’s thoughts below.
It’s been a year since we posted What Does Free Really Get You? AVAIL’s Response to Autodesk’s Acquisition of UNIFI. In this blog post, we explored the hidden costs of so-called "free" solutions used to manage content and information. Today, we want to take that discussion a step further and address another critical issue: the cost of work that goes unused.
Regardless of whether you're using free software or a paid solution for your content management needs, the real cost comes when work is done to improve content but the system is not widely used by the firm. This inefficiency isn't just a minor inconvenience—it can be a major drain on resources, time, and productivity. When teams invest time in creating and organizing information, only to have it buried in systems that few people access, the value of that work diminishes rapidly.
One of the biggest culprits of this inefficiency is the reliance on piecemeal, point solutions. These are tools that solve very specific problems like managing your firm’s Revit content, texture library, or photos, but are only used intermittently. The issue? Intermittent use leads to poor recall and engagement. Your team will be left asking questions like, “Where do we keep technical documents again?” If someone needs to relearn a tool every time they use it, the friction increases, and adoption declines. Over time, this leads to an underutilization of the very tools that were meant to improve efficiency.
That’s why we built AVAIL to be a horizontal solution—one that is deeply integrated into workflows, ensuring consistent usage and recall. A tool that is used daily becomes second nature, reducing cognitive load and increasing efficiency. The alternative—using a scattered array of point solutions to manage Drafting Views and Families, plus photos, Miro boards, SketchUp files, and more—creates silos and discourages engagement, ultimately costing more in lost productivity than any software license ever could.
Point solutions are your enemy. They create barriers rather than bridges, especially for intermittent users. A truly effective system is one that minimizes friction and maximizes adoption. If your team is struggling with underutilized tools, it’s worth taking a step back to evaluate whether your approach is fostering engagement or just adding to the noise.
The real question isn’t whether software is free or paid. The question is: how much is inefficiency costing you?
Randall Stevens | AVAIL CEO and Founder
Between the Desktop application and Project Navigator Revit add-in, AVAIL is easily utilized on a daily basis by all members of your team, from BIM managers to designers, engineers, and beyond. Additionally, with the latest AVAIL 5.0 release, we have added some exciting new workflow tools like Related Content and Palettes. Below, we outline how AVAIL is a complete horizontal solution for AEC content management.
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Founded in 2016 as a solution for architecture and engineering firms to find the information they need faster, AVAIL creates software for the global architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. AVAIL’s content management system (CMS) platform and Revit application tools help designers and engineers take control of their intricate network of files in one visual, streamlined solution. AVAIL’s customers include industry leaders Gensler, Perkins&Will, IMEG, LEO A DALY, and Populous.