One of the repercussions of the economic downturn that happened a few years ago is that the customer/vendor relationship has changed. Aided by a shift in technology, where the user experience is no longer an afterthought and users expect the ability to customize their environments, the traditional customer relationship structure in construction – with the Subcontractors managed by the General Contractor/Construction Manager who reports to the Owner – has shifted. The new Customer Paradigm now includes the idea that every department within your organization is a customer. Within the supply chain of your organization, every department has a customer, another department, to which they must answer.

The background to this development is based on the evolution of construction software over the last few decades. The first stage of software development, called The Functionality Stage, was focused solely on the purpose of the software, regardless of the technology or the usability. This stage is also referred to as The Get Something To Work Stage, and it was the era of green screens, Microsoft Access and modifications of low-end off-the-shelf applications. The technology wasn’t developed enough to provide true business value, and end-user experience was an afterthought.

The next stage, The Technology Stage, saw the introduction of more sophisticated technology, such as web pages and easier-to-use interfaces that increased business intelligence among users. Construction software became more user friendly, and users could get more information out of the system.  However, the core product didn’t really change -new interfaces were laid on top of old technology. To use a metaphor from another industry: cars have changed a lot over the last few years – more comfortable seats, more aerodynamic body designs, nicer displays on the dashboard – but the drive train has remained essentially the same. In software, the corporate drive train remained the same but the outside shell changed.

Business intelligence was only evaluated against only items that the organization could see and control. The more complex the organization became, the more complex the system became, until it reached the point where there as a system guru who sat in an office and pulled the levers, a Wizard of Oz who knew how to manipulate the system that had become outdated. The user base didn’t really understand how what they did worked and why they did what they did.

Then came CMiC.

Through good project management, with at first a comprehensive financial package, then the first fully integrated, Web-based Financial and Project Management solution designed for the construction industry, and with a client base that includes some of the largest and most technologically progressive firms in North America,  CMiC grew a solution that upgraded the corporate drive train. With CMiC, knowledge was distributed deeper into the organization, giving employees more control over their environment and a better sense of business processes.

With the introduction of CMiC Experience Management, uses can know customize the CMiC environment to match any organizational or business requirement. The IT Department now has the ability to customize screens – change the field name, change the placement of the field – and also build new screens. This is a significant change in the way software is used in the construction industry.  With these new abilities, the entire organization is the customer for the IT Department. The IT Department has the power to increase productivity, enhance efficiency and ensure a wider user adoption of the solution, which boosts the business value of the IT Department.

For the Finance Department, the customer is now The Operations Department.   The Finance Department now has the tools to access project information and present it, through dashboards and dynamic reports, on a level that didn’t exist a few years ago.

For Operations, the client is the Owner. With sophisticated collaboration tools, so all project stakeholders are working with real-time information, and the ability to have a screen built to specs so that any user, regardless of their technological skills,  can use it, Operations can improve customer satisfaction.

Believing that good customer experience drives success means that all departments in your organization have to treat all departments well. This new approached, powered by CMiC Open Enterprise v10 and CMiC Experience Management, improves customer satisfaction on all levels and ultimately leads to an increase in profitability.

For more information on how CMiC Open Enterprise v10 can help you improve customer satisfaction, please Contact Us.

For more information on CMiC Experience Management, please visit here.