How Can Automation Capture Gains in Construction Management?

Improving Construction Management and Financial Transparency

With more than 2,000 unique construction contracts to manage, a major technology company needed a better approach than their disconnected, manual systems. Ģ��tv deployed automations — driven by our deep expertise construction management — to streamline bidding, simplify billing, and create better project tracking and accountability.

The Challenge

For global corporations expanding their footprint, managing a myriad of construction suppliers can lead to waste, frustration, and inefficiency. Our client was struggling to advertise bids and manage responses. Invoicing involved multiple systems and manual steps. Financial forecasting was also manual, difficult, and prone to error.

Seeking an approach that was integrated and error proof, the client engaged Ģ��tv's multidisciplinary team to bring together construction expertise and data and computer science insights that could transform their current processes.

EXPONent's multidisciplinary solution

We designed and developed an integrated data portal to automate the bidding and financial reporting process for our technology client. The new portal functioned as both a gateway for hundreds of vendors to submit invoices and view historical records as well as a secure platform for the company's finance teams to process invoices and send data downstream to multiple financial accounting systems. A business intelligence visualization layer provided high-level insights on project performance.

Our construction management experts outlined system requirements for financial processes and the required business intelligence and flagged the financial controls necessary for meeting accounting standards. After reviewing off-the-shelf solutions, the team decided that a custom solution was the only way to address these needs. They also decided to use MS Excel as the user interface because of the industry's familiarity and comfort with this "old school" tool — a critical component for change management success.

Ģ��tv's Impact

Our automated solution generated efficiencies and cost savings and reduced the frustration that came with our client's siloed, manual systems.

The initiative has saved the client over 20% in construction costs.
The client's productivity in financial reporting has increased by 20%, saving them 20% in resource hours a month.

The client has been able to award 40% more construction contracts than in previous comparable timeframes, accelerating their ability to meet the industry's growing data capacity needs.

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