ABM reaps benefits of an integrated business system

ABM Precast Solutions has been using Workspace for two years to manage documents, emails and track all customer relationship activities and is now seeing increasing synergies in the industry as more companies are using online knowledge management solutions for both internal working and sharing information.

ABM Precast Solutions manufacture bespoke concrete solutions for civil engineering clients, including Volker Fitzpartick, Balfour Beatty and BAM Nuttall. Typically these are concrete structures for bridges, underpasses and industrial processes. They are currently working on bridge containment systems for the Olympic Village and have recently completed work at the Kings Cross Central development. ABM Precast Solutions are part of the ABM Group which is also using Workspace in its Dublin head office as well as operations in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland and a recently acquired construction business in the North West known as ABM Radcliffe.

ABM originally purchased Workspace as a CRM system to introduce control over their enquiry management process. Business Development Manager Mike Sanderson comments: “When we reviewed the market we found that Workspace was the only product that could manage enquiries in the way we required. Often we will get multiple bids when our clients are at the tender stage in a project. We need the functionality to manage multiple bids for what would eventually be one project. Workspace enabled us to reference multiple companies against one enquiry, re-use work from one bid for another and see the full bid history when eventually the project was won. Workspace was by far the most sophisticated bid management system we looked at.”

All the company's products are made to order with short lead times and definite deadlines. With final designs often developing during manufacture it is critical that latest drawings are available to everyone:“Document control is critical for our business. With Workspace we have a full audit trail of document issues and revisions so should never have mis-information or mis-communications resulting in project delays.”

Mike has noticed an increased synergy in the supply chain as more companies start to use online systems. “We are finding that an increasing number of tenders are distributed online rather than on CD or paper. This enables us to quickly download the relevant documents into Workspace.”

The CRM issues that ABM initially set out to solve have been significantly improved through Workspace. Actions are used extensively to track contact with customers and leads are passed to the relevant people within the business. Mike comments: “Workspace ensures we never miss a call back, never lose contact with a customer and are always on the front foot with enquiries.” ABM also uses the analysis and reporting tools to examine bid history: “We use Workspace to analyse the history of lost bids and track trends or commonalities. We also use the system to assist with future product development by tracking incoming enquiries that we're currently unable to bid for. Everything that comes into the business is tracked within Workspace to ensure nothing goes off the radar or escapes our attention.”

ABM is continuing to increase their use of Workspace, with their latest office in St Helens using Workspace for CRM and document management and the Dublin office is coming on board with document management later in the year.