Reflections on 2025 and Why Integrated Operations Will Drive Success in 2026

As the year closes, I have been reflecting on the conversations I have had with customers across fiber, utilities, renewables, and oil and gas. Those discussions have been honest, sometimes blunt, and always informative. They revealed what teams are struggling with, what they have learned, and what has genuinely moved the needle for them over the past 12 months. And taken together, those conversations made one thing clear. Success next year will belong to the organizations that value integrated operations as the foundation of everything they do.

The last 365 days were a reminder that momentum is not created by chance. It comes from how well a team understands its work, how reliably information moves between people, and how quickly problems can be identified and corrected. The customers who ended this year in a stronger position did so by staying focused on improving those fundamentals, especially as pressures around them increased.

What Customers Told Me About the Year’s Real Challenges

Every leader I met this year faced a different version of the same challenge. Rising expectations, tighter timelines, and a growing demand for accuracy, transparency, and accountability. No one lacked ambition. What they lacked was the connective tissue that keeps a project moving when complexity increases.

In one conversation after another, customers described how disconnected tools slowed them down, how field teams often worked with incomplete information, and how much time was lost trying to reconcile the plan with what was actually happening on the ground. Others spoke about delays that could have been avoided if issues had surfaced sooner or if contractors had better visibility into scope and quality.

These weren’t theoretical problems. They were daily realities. And the companies that made meaningful progress didn’t do it by changing their goals. They did it by tightening the flow of work through their organizations.

The Pressure to Deliver More With the Same Teams

Another theme that surfaced repeatedly was the pressure to produce more without increasing crew size. Labor constraints weren’t something customers debated. They were something customers lived with. That reality forced them to focus on productivity in a different way.

What customers told me, again and again, was that productivity gains didn’t come from pushing harder. They came from removing friction. When job packets were clearer, work moved faster. When field teams knew exactly what to expect, quality improved. When office teams had accurate, up-to-date information, schedules finally reflected reality rather than hope.

These insights came directly from the people doing the work. They were quick to point out that productivity is not a matter of effort. It is a matter of alignment. And alignment is impossible without integrated operations.

Where Customers Drew the Line on Legacy Processes

Something else changed this year. I noticed a shift in how customers talked about digital transformation. For a long time, it was a phrase more associated with strategy decks than day-to-day work. But throughout 2025, customers stopped seeing modernization as optional.

Many told me outright that spreadsheets had become a liability. Others admitted their teams were spending more time pulling data together than acting on it. A few described the growing frustration of managing multi-million-dollar projects with systems that weren’t designed for the speed and scale of modern builds.

What stood out was the sense that customers weren’t looking for digital tools. They were looking for operational clarity. A way to see their work, understand it, trust the data behind it, and make confident decisions based on what was actually happening.

What These Conversations Reveal About 2026

If there is one lesson from these discussions, it is that the operators who lead next year will be the ones who treat integration as a competitive advantage. Not an upgrade. Not an IT project. A structural requirement for meeting the demands ahead.

Customers made it clear that the coming year will reward organizations that connect their plans, field teams, and data into a single execution system. Companies that continue to operate in silos will fight unnecessary battles. Companies that eliminate those silos will find themselves moving faster and with less effort.

Integrated operations are not about technology. They are about control, clarity, and momentum. And customers told me, unmistakably, that these are becoming the defining factors of performance.

Vitruvi’s Role in the Path Forward

What I heard from customers this year has reaffirmed our purpose. Vitruvi exists to help builders operate with confidence, eliminate uncertainty, and deliver at a pace that meets market expectations. We designed our platform to connect workflows, teams, and data into a system that supports real work in the field, not theoretical processes on paper.

This year, more than any before, customers told us that integrated operations didn’t just help their projects. They changed them. They reduced rework. They avoided delays. They strengthened trust between the office and the field. They improved communication with contractors. And they gave teams the visibility they needed to solve problems early, not late.

As we head into 2026, our commitment is clear. We will continue building the operational backbone that helps constructors achieve predictable, consistent, high-quality delivery at scale. Because after a year of listening to customers, it is undeniable. Integrated operations are no longer the future. They are the difference between falling behind and pulling ahead.

And for the teams that want to pull ahead, momentum starts now.

Best wishes from me and the Vitruvi team for 2026!

Gerry Spoor,

CEO, Vitruvi Software.