As construction companies grow they undergo a number of transitions. The company starts out usually with the owner who manages the projects. The owner is on site much of the time and personally knows the important information to make the necessary decisions.
But as the company begins to win more work and the team grows, owners understand that their time is valuable and that they can hire others to do the less important work. Contracts grow in size and complexity, schedules, quality become key to success.
Eventually the owner has a number of site coordinators working under him, a project manager and a financial manager. The office is becoming a important part of the operation.
At this stage the company is beginning to run into a number of key issues, estimates are becoming more complex, financial reports are rising in importance as the owner no longer has all the figures in his head, equipment is becoming harder to track, materials are coming from multiple suppliers and onsite spending is rising.
All the various site coordinators and foremen have their own way to run the projects, documentation is usually underpar, client relationships more become strained and change orders start becoming important and are not easy to prove and claim payment.
The company is focused on projects and every project is treated as its own entity.
The owner begins to understand that it is getting out of control, cause and effect are becoming harder to track and understand, the company needs to start bringing in some order.
This is when processes start to become important, how you undertake purchases, how you organise equipment, labour, materials, subcontractors, documentation, payment applications and so on. At this stage the owner will look for a person who has worked at a larger company or maybe even determine these processes through past experience. The processes will be set up and the necessary people updated but overtime unless certain persons are tasked with the authority to audit these processes people will eventually fall back into their old habits.
The company continues to grow in size and the projects in complexity and the owners and managers find how they do things as ineffective and inefficient. They begin to look towards technology and software systems. These systems seem to answer many of there problems and standardise the common processes, offer consistency and reliability. They go out and purchase a systems and if they purchase the system which best suits them, match it with their current processes, train the people how to use it and update the processes due to the changes due to the system can add much value.
With a good software system and an update of company processes, people's efforts and time to undertake tasks can be greatly reduced and projects completed in a much more predetermined way.
Well planned and functioning processes and software systems can help take a struggling company to a holistic company. That is sustainable, expandable and profitable.