Excel Group boosts efficiency and growth with streamlined communication and document management

The Excel Group specialises in MMC – Modern Methods of Construction; delivering sustainable, low-carbon building solutions. They have two branches to their UK business – design, supply and installation of off-site building systems, and window and door installations covering projects from blocks of flats to smaller residential sites.

Challenge

With a small team and multiple branches to their business, the Excel Group needs to have robust communication while dealing with multiple stakeholders. Managing subcontractors means communicating a lot of information, while ensuring they are compliant with regulations – recording data for Part L building regulations are an example of how they needed to be confident in a tracking and management system. Communication was one of the biggest challenges that Fonn needed to address for Excel Group’s team; for example they had no reliable way to check that drawings issued to subcontractors had been relayed to site teams.

Jason Pritchard, Managing Director at Excel Group noted that time saving functionality and ease of use were his biggest factors in looking for a solution; one that would make it easier for subcontractors to remain disciplined in recording all aspects of a project.

Solution

After meeting the Fonn team at a UK trade show, Jason was impressed with the system’s simplicity and the support offered by the customer success team. By implementing a central source of information for all projects, Jason has been able to eliminate sporadic updates, keeping things consistent: “When we win a project now, we can record all kinds of things like submittals without needing to fill in a spreadsheet,” he said.

All contract documents are managed in Fonn, giving Jason’s team and subcontractors they work with access to the right documents and drawings without worrying that they are working from the latest versions. “Fonn is a great way of organising your workflow and tasks that need to be done, and communicating it to everybody else,” Jason said. Having cloud-based documents had worked to an extent for Excel Group, but having a single source of truth fosters greater confidence in project processes without the need to search through spreadsheets and WhatsApp messages for the right updates or images.

Business growth with Fonn

Jason and his team use several of Fonn’s central features in their day-to-day operations including Scope of Works (project planning, scheduling and management), Submittals, Tender Management, and Snagging.

Fonn’s snagging/issues tool has been a great timesaver; historically this would take half an hour (or longer) to track an issue and sometimes it wouldn’t even get done. With issues linked to Fonn’s Scope of Works, there is confidence that issues are being tracked and can be seen as part of a project’s overall progress.

As they grow, Excel Group also values a system that enables them to present information to clients in an easily digestible format: “Feedback from customers is good, everything we show them looks professional,” Jason said.

"I looked at other systems but this one was the simplest to use and the easiest to get on board." Jason Pritchard, Excel Group

With less time spent on chasing communication, Jason has found that he has more time to dedicate to growing his business. “As a small business we spend a lot of time bidding for work. I find I can spend more time bidding for the right sort of work now because I’m not spending as much time on contact admin,” he said.

Better communication with the whole team

Having a central app to manage communication means Jason is confident that everyone is accessing the latest documents. “Giving people access to our document folders in the app means we know everyone is always looking at the latest drawings and this reduces the risk in terms of missed communication,” he said.

Fonn’s mobile app has been an easy learning curve for the Excel Group and Jason acknowledged that this helps with getting people on-board; “We’re all used to looking at our phones anyway, it’s super easy!”

The Excel Group’s relationship with Fonn is underpinned by strong support from the Fonn team, and the knowledge that if Jason has any questions or concerns, they are picked up swiftly. Fonn’s customer success team has been active in making sure Jason and his team are using the system efficiently, and in a way that best supports their own processes.

On recommending a system to other contractors Jason said he wouldn’t hesitate to suggest Fonn and it comes back to ease of use: “I looked at other systems but this one was the simplest to use and the easiest to get on board.”

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