Success Story
Bringing it all together: Wendel Companies increases profit and drives growth using Unanet
Wendel Companies, a multidisciplinary firm, successfully unified their operations by...
Case Study
STO Building Group leverages lightning-fast reporting and proposal generation capabilities company-wide with Unanet
Motivation for Identifying a Solution: To recognize a project management and personnel data solution that was working for one of its companies and apply that value across the larger organization. STO Building Group (STOBG) is a firm that emphasizes the need for growth, adaptability, and flexibility. Take, for example, STOBG’s 2020 acquisition of Layton Construction. After welcoming Layton to its family of companies, executives soon discovered Layton had been using Unanet for its project and personnel data needs. STOBG appreciated the ability Layton had to quickly pull data and generate reports.
The firm needed a place to share its various companies’ data in one place – historically speaking, each of its 14 companies’ brand information was housed in disparate locations and wasn’t consistent.
Once STOBG witnessed Layton’s success using Unanet’s reporting functionality, it inquired about what it would take to scale this solution to more of its companies. STOBG’s leadership saw the value in Unanet and decided to buy in to facilitate more growth and success. According to STOBG’s Regional Marketing Director, Molly Hannon, “Executive leadership saw this solution and said, ‘We need everyone to have this.’”
STO Building Group
STOBG offers services to support construction projects throughout all stages of the lifecycle. The organization is made up of 14 companies, with over 50 offices. The STOBG family of companies – Structure Tone, Structure Tone Southwest, Pavarini Construction Co., Pavarini McGovern, LF Driscoll, Govan Brown, Ajax Building Company, BCCI Construction, Layton Construction, Abbott Construction, and RC Andersen – includes over 4,500 employees located in offices throughout the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland. They provide a complete range of construction services, from site selection analysis, design constructability review, and aesthetic enhancements to interior fit-outs, new building construction, and building infrastructure upgrades and modernization.
The Challenges
-
Unify STOBG’s companies with one central platform for managing marketing and proposal data
Each company within STOBG used a different tool for managing marketing and proposal data.
-
Identify a solution that makes it easier to find and access project experience and personnel data
The ability to easily store and locate projects and personnel information were both major factors for STOBG to prompt its companies to switch. For most companies, finding and accessing data for reports and submittals is time-consuming.
-
Implement a comprehensive platform for managing its proposal efforts
Pinpoint one place for all companies to store their proposal and personnel experience to make life easier on marketing and proposal teams. Each company had a different proposal process, with some more efficient than others.
The Solution
-
Use Unanet as the company-wide repository for marketing and proposal data
STOBG observed the truly cohesive, functioning system Unanet provided for Layton and wanted more of its companies to experience the benefits of the platform.
-
Import data from all 14 STOBG companies into Unanet
Rather than storing its data in disparate locations, STOBG looked to Unanet as a single repository. This made it simpler for its proposal and marketing teams to find the information they needed when they needed it – they no longer needed to hunt for material across multiple systems.
-
All companies use Unanet’s publication capabilities to accelerate and scale their submittal processes
With Unanet’s publication capability, STOBG was able to generate content such as close-out reports, resumes, and project sheets with no limitations on templates and flexibility to customize as needed.
Everyone I worked with at Unanet was gold, from the data team to the product team. They made sure that anytime data needed to move, we’d huddle with them for a product call, a kickoff call, or a quick touch base. They were always willing to make time for that.
The Approach
-
Get leadership buy-in then clean up all data
Once STOBG leadership saw Layton’s success using Unanet, they approved it for all companies. From there, the team led a data clean up initiative.
-
Migrated multiple companies to one singular system
The team replicated Layton’s Unanet environment, modifying the fields to provide a custom fit for STOBG’s unique business needs. STOBG ended up migrating 10 of its companies into the same system.
-
Enable standardization in the future
As STOBG continues its upward trajectory of growth, the organization as a whole wants to standardize how it manages its project data across all of its companies. Unanet’s team helped STOBG explore methods for standardizing its project data management going forward.
-
Leverage Unanet’s data team for assistance
STOBG didn’t have the capability to move each individual record as part of a bulk update. Unanet’s data team stepped in to help them do that, working with STOBG to get the personnel data moved to the right place. This ultimately saved STOBG time at no additional cost to them.
We’ve used the reporting feature a lot. Having all of our data in one central location and being able to pull reports at the drop of a hat is huge.
-
A more robust, comprehensive database of information
STOBG built out a thorough database of project and personal experience information. This saved valuable time for its marketing team, as they no longer needed to pull data from multiple sources. -
An easier experience sharing data across companies and offices
Unanet allowed STOBG to truly unify its information sharing experience across all of its sister companies and office locations. Turning to Unanet helped everyone connect easier with less roadblocks to communication. -
Faster delivery of information to the C-Suite
When STOBG company leadership requests data, Unanet can get it to them quickly, allowing for quicker decision-making and streamlined operations.
Related Content
Success Story
Better data, better win rate: How Clayco leveraged its data into winning better projects using...
Five years ago, in the competitive realm of design, engineering, and constructionservices, Clayco...
Success Story
Big-D Construction
Unanet CRM by Cosential is an easy to implement time-saver that can provide necessary business...