What Took Expedia 9 Years Might Take Construction 2

The Clock is Ticking on Procurement’s Wake-Up Call

In 1996, a small division within Microsoft launched something curious: an online platform that let travelers book flights themselves. No need for an agent. Just a search bar, a few clicks, and you had your itinerary.

That platform was called Expedia. And in those early years, most people ignored it.

Why would you trust a computer over your travel agent? Why scroll through listings when Carol at Flight Centre already knew your preferences? Sound familiar?

That was the logic then — and for a while, it held. Travel agents kept their rolodexes spinning, brochures stacked, phones ringing. Expedia, Travelocity, and others were novelties. Early adopters played around. But the industry? Still firmly analog.

Then it changed. Quietly at first, then quickly.

By the early 2000s — less than a decade in — Expedia was pulling in billions in bookings. A travel agent’s greatest asset, access to product, had gone digital. Consumers no longer needed an intermediary to get the best price or see all the options. They could search, compare, and book on their own terms.

By 2005, traditional travel agencies were closing down or narrowing their focus to niche luxury, adventure, or corporate markets. The writing was on the wall: if your job was simply to facilitate access to options, you were being replaced by software.

Now take a deep breath.

And think about construction.

Procurement: Stuck in 1996

Ask a designer or architect to describe their procurement workflow, and you’ll hear something that feels… familiar.

• Endless manufacturer websites
  
  
• Spreadsheets and screenshots
  
  
• Emails to reps asking for availability or alternates
  
  
• Dropbox folders with disorganized spec sheets
  
  
• A lot of wasted hours, duplicated work, and missed context
  
  

Specifying lighting — or any construction product, really — is like trying to book a multi-stop international trip with no map, limited filters, and a half-dozen people cc’d.

This is not a knock on reps or manufacturers or designers. Everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have. But we’re well into the 2020s, and construction procurement still behaves like a pre-internet industry.

There’s a reason most new design teams still rely on PDFs and folder structures. The technology they’ve been given doesn’t match the complexity of the work — or the pace of modern projects.

Why Hasn’t This Changed Already?

It’s easy to point fingers at the industry being “slow to adopt.” But the truth is more nuanced.

Construction is collaborative. It’s local. It’s complex.
You don’t just “buy a product” — you align it with a code, a schedule, an installer, a submittal, a warranty, a site condition.
The context around the product is as important as the product itself.

That’s why Amazon never entered this space. Why procurement platforms from other industries fall flat when they try to “go construction.”
Because the problem isn’t just digitization.
It’s coordination.

And that’s exactly where the opportunity lies.

What Expedia Disrupted — and What We Can Learn

Here’s the key insight: Expedia didn’t kill travel agents. It killed inefficiency.

The agents that survived were the ones who specialized, who brought layered expertise, who offered context, not just access.

Expedia took away the grunt work — the price-checking, the searching, the back-and-forth — and left space for agents to do what software couldn’t.

We see the same potential in construction.

Imagine if product search wasn’t siloed.
If communication wasn’t scattered across inboxes.
If submittals, alternates, and markups lived in the same place as your Revit model.
If manufacturers didn’t have to fight to be seen by specifiers.
If reps could focus on value-added consultation instead of basic coordination.

Imagine a system where everyone in the value chain worked from the same data source — live, accurate, coordinated.

That’s the future Sourcery is building.

Construction’s Inflection Point

The difference now is that we don’t need nine years.

Expedia was built in an era of dial-up. Sourcery is being built on cloud infrastructure, real-time BIM, and AI-enabled workflows. The runway is shorter. The change is faster.

We’re not here to replace people.  We’re here to replace friction.

Just like Expedia did.

Here’s what happens when you get it right:

• Designers move faster
  
  
• Manufacturers get clearer insight
  
  
• Reps add more strategic value
  
  
• Owners and contractors get fewer surprises
  
  

And crucially: the entire process becomes more collaborative — not less.

So What Happens Next?

The industry has a choice.

You can wait. You can hope the friction works itself out. You can double down on old workflows and relationships and hope they scale.

Or you can lean in. You can help shape what this next era looks like.

The good news?
You’re not starting from scratch.
The tools are here. The ecosystem is growing. And the transformation — already underway — is being led by designers, manufacturers, and reps who are ready to work smarter.

At Sourcery, we’re not trying to be the Expedia of construction.

We’re building something better.

Something that honors the depth, complexity, and human expertise of this industry — while making the coordination feel as seamless as booking a trip.

We believe procurement can be delightful. Transparent. Collaborative.
We believe that what took 9 years in travel could take 2 years — maybe less — in construction.
And we believe now is the moment to build the future together.

Curious where you fit in?
If you're a designer, rep, or manufacturer who's ready to help shape what’s next, we’d love to chat.

Because the best way to predict the future of procurement… is to build it.

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