Dubai Road Construction ERP Success with Odoo Staff Augmentation

Today, i’ll take you through the success story of one of our road construction clients in Dubai who opted for our Odoo staff augmentation services. This company was growing fast within the construction sector but they were not able to keep up the sync between their back office and on site momentum.

What was their on ground situation

So, one the day when i met with them they already had got major projects one in Al Quoz, and another in Abu Dhabi outskirts, and a few more were already lined up for them. Their site team was sharp and were always adamant to the given deadlines but what the real problem i figured was not on the road but it was in their backend.

So in their backend purchase order were being managed using WhatsApp, paper backed diaries were being used for maintaining fuel logs for their machinery, their subcontractors were running behind them for their payouts, on site workers were not able to manage and submit their reporting, so all in all it was a mess and everything was scattered everywhere.

And this is time when i spoke to their operations head he said something that stuck with me: we are working on the ground but you know what i am not able to tell where exactly the budget is leaking until it is already too late. Hence this is actually a classic case where a company has outpaced its systems in place.

Why ERP Making Sense: But In-House Wasn’t

Well, the operations head already knew that they needed an ERP system which is actually practical and which will be able to tie their projects, procurement, accounting, HR, and fleet together. So, in this situation and ask Odoo made quickly to the top of the shortlist.

But still one thing was still ticking in their mind and that was they were not ready to set up a ERP team from scratch. The option of hiring Odoo developers, consultants, training them and then waiting for a whole period of 6 months was not an option on this bucket list as their construction projects had already started off.

Provided them With Odoo ERP Experts

So, after giving a thought we proposed them with staff augmentation. Kindly note that we did not just provide them just any developers. We provided them with real experienced construction-savvy Odoo consultants, developers, quality assurance members who could jump in like internal team members from day 1.

Here is what we deployed through our proposed staff augmentation model –

• 1 Project Manager that will be leading the delivery
• 2 Functional consultants who knew the inside out of how construction procurement and subcontracting works
• 2 Developers for custom workflows in the construction industry domain
• 1 QA/support engineer for real-time fixes and support after post going live

Hence, we never wasted time and in the first week we started off with our discovery workshops at their main office with – site managers, accountants, and foremen. We spent a full day whiteboarding their existing process like where PRs came from, how subcontractors were billed, and how the fuel consumption was tracked.

There, we met one of their engineers who openly said that if you will automate the back and forth that we have to do between the site and office that would for sure be helpful as it is going to save hours on a daily basis.

Here are the key Construction ERP Moves we made

let me brief you what we were going to do over the next 60 days:

So what has Changed?

Within the initial 3 months a tangible impacts were observed, to mention some are –

• Drop in procurement cycle from 5 to 2 days
• Reduction in fleet idle time by almost 25%
• Real-time budget visibility for each and very site
• Transparency in sub contractor payouts and they stopped calling up
• Manual reporting dropped by almost 70%

Here is what their project director had to say after the time we already invested at their site: Now, I get more clarity from my dashboard than I used to from 10 people calling me every evening.”

lastly, i want to mention is that flexibility is the beauty of staff augmentation. We stayed on for 6 months and implemented, trained their team, documented everything, and came back. One of the staff the consultant stayed as retainer for providing the post implementation support.

So, they did not hire blindly nor did they overbuild and never did they delay. Just plugged in the right people at the right time and got their job done.

If you’re sailing in the same boat then i would say that there is no need for a massive tech department to go digital. Sometimes a focused Construction ERP rollout along with the right people having the understanding of both Odoo and road construction can change the game.

If our staff augmentation services worked in Dubai so can anywhere else in the world. To know more how our Odoo staff augmentation services can help you to sail safely drop us a line at sales@apagen.com or call us on +91 9971800665.