Case Studies

Improve Customer Satisfaction

With better visibilty

Background

Datanet Engineering is a fast-growing engineering firm specializing in industrial hygiene and environmental and corrosion engineering. Its engineers and staff are tasked with providing high-level failure analysis, causation studies, remediation design, construction management and litigation support to clients throughout the United States. Datanet's projects range from one-day site inspections to complex multi-year engagements.

The demand for Datanet's engineering services skyrocketed in recent years with the increasing volume of environmental laws and regulations appearing in federal, state and local levels of government. Datanet met this demand and took on new clients, new projects, and added more engineers and support staff to its team of professionals.

Challenge

The higher volume of projects and new clients, combined with a growing staff, made it more difficult to track whether a project was on budget. Datanet processed everything manually. But this system could not handle the increased business. As a prime example, every two weeks, Datanet's engineers, inspectors and consultants from various locations across the country, submitted their time sheets, job costs and expenses in a massive spreadsheet to the main office. Project milestones were communicated via fax and telephone calls to various people on the team. This system resulted in significant delays between the time when a budgetary issue arose, and the time that management became aware of the problem, effectively denying management any opportunity to handle the situation. "We were really losing track," says Andrew Cignatta, a Datanet project manager. "Delays affect project profitability and client satisfaction" he explains. It was a losing proposition in all instances. The manual spreadsheet-based system wasn't working.

Solution

Datanet's management identified the problem, and knew they needed a tool giving them real-time visibility into the budget status of its projects. In his search, Cignatta learned about Vertabase 4 from a friend who was already a satisfied customer. Cignatta knew it would be a good fit and implemented Vertabase 4 after a live demo. Datanet professionals now had a central repository with clearly marked categories to input timesheets, project costs and other expenses. Being web-based, team members could access Vertabase wherever they were: in the office, onsite, or at the airport, all they needed was a Web browser. Management had access to the most current budget and expense data since all Vertabase 4 reports are updated in real-time. This allowed them to instantly locate budgetary problems. The customizable reports enabled project managers to create the exact report needed for their purposes, generating reports including or excluding information appropriate for their target audience. Whether it was upper management, outside consultants, governmental authorities, or clients, the right information was just a few clicks away.

Results

"Vertabase 4 has been a great software purchase for us," Cignatta says. "I now know what I've lost out on over the years by not having this in place sooner." The staff now has more opportunities to input data, and can record events as they happen, capturing more job costs than before, and preventing costs from slipping through the cracks. This solved a serious problem. The information in the reports is so detailed and clearly presented that management can not only see current budgetary problems, but can foresee future budgetary issues, empowering them to make plans to avoid them. The management team can also generate daily budget reports for each project, and can share this information with clients when appropriate. "We can give a client a detailed breakdown of any given day's activities on their behalf, if they ask for it," says Cignatta. "We are seeing things more clearly and can adjust quicker than ever before." Vertabase 4 has been a real leg-up from the manual spreadsheet-based system. "It has increased our ability to grow profitably and manage more work easily."

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