In this eBook, Re-flow explores the crucial role the correct field management software can play in the expansion of your construction business.
Fuelling Ambitious Expansion in Construction
In the dynamic landscape of the UK construction sector, businesses of all sizes face a common challenge: the pursuit of sustainable growth.
Whether operating a small to medium-sized enterprise, firmly rooted in their local community, or managing a large corporation with ambitions to expand operations nationwide, the path to success in this industry is marked by unique opportunities and obstacles.
During this turbulent and uncertain period, success hinges on the ability to adapt, innovate, and scale efficiently. Increasingly, companies across the UK are turning to field management solutions to secure a path to sustainable growth.
Among the leaders in the field is Re-flow, an award-winning platform of tools that’s being utilised by industry heavyweights, including M.V. Kelly, FM Conway, Colas and hundreds of other businesses nationwide.
This eBook aims to track the journey of how Re-flow’s features and scalability can benefit businesses on each step of their growth journey and provide them with the tools to reach their next big milestone.
1. Small to Medium-sized Businesses
In the UK construction sector, there are approximately 12,000 businesses numbering between 10 and 20 employees. These firms form the backbone of local industry, often operating within their county, city, or region of establishment.
Despite a turbulent period marred by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry has shown slow, but steady recovery in the years since.
Even in the face of rising material costs, workforce shortages and other important issues, the sector, and its businesses continue to expand.
For businesses of this size, beginning to broaden their reach beyond their local area is perhaps one of the most crucial opportunities to ensure scalability and sustainability in its processes. Securing a solution that grows alongside a business will prove an invaluable part of any growth journey.
This is the stage where cracks will truly begin to show with paper-based, manual systems. What may initially seem a field-tested, tried-and-true way of working, will burst at the seams when put under the increasing stress of expansion.
Many companies in this position are now turning to field management solutions, such as Re-flow.
Businesses beginning both their growth and digital transformation journey stand to benefit greatly from the foundational features of Re-flow. This includes job creation, scheduling of events and tasks, digital forms and cloud-based record-keeping.
Perhaps the first place where companies start to gain efficiency is through job creation. Rather than creating, printing, compiling and manually delivering job pack folders, Re-flow enables jobs to be created within minutes and fleshed out with PDFs, photos, diagrams and more. Once ready, events and tasks can be scheduled against jobs and instantly communicated to operatives in the field.
In a manual setting, just scaling up job pack distribution and creation would require increasingly complex logistics, costing manpower, money and time. With Re-flow, whether there’s 10 operatives or 500, the process stays consistent – infinitely scalable.
At this stage, streamlined efficiency also begins to bear fruit. Taking on more work and employees means resource allocation becomes harder to track, and more complex jobs may require specialised qualifications. Re-flow’s intuitive drag-and-drop scheduler automatically tracks operative availability, as well as qualifications, triggering conflicts that ensure the right people for the job are always assigned.
Re-flow also facilitates one of the most important considerations for businesses in the sector, regardless of size – health and safety management. The system completely digitises form completion, providing an intuitive operative experience that eliminates confusion and enforces compliance. Equipped with time, date and location tagging, building audit trails becomes an equally effortless process.
With a suite of powerful tools on-hand to prevent, track and resolve on-site incidents, businesses can stay secure against on-site injuries, fines and delays. Much like job creation, eliminating the logistics surrounding paper forms means health and safety processes can scale as fast as you need, without compromising on compliance.
In conclusion, small to medium-sized businesses will quickly see benefits from Re-flow’s base features – job creation, scheduling and health and safety management. At this stage, streamlining these basic but crucial processes can give businesses the freedom they need to sustain their initial growth and propel them to the next level, with confidence that they won’t outgrow them, no matter how large they get.
2. Large Businesses
Entering the next stage of growth means more process to track, on a far wider scale. With success often comes expansion, and large businesses will often undertake projects across larger geographical areas, or even nationwide. With the foundational processes streamlined, Re-flow also offers a myriad of tools to sustain further stages of business growth.
With more projects and employees, it’s likely that a business’s vehicle fleet and equipment count will also be growing. Manually tracking asset locations, MOTs and maintenance is a tedious and time-consuming process that will needlessly siphon away administrative teams’ time and attention.
Re-flow’s asset management system automates many of the processes involved with tracking a large number of assets. Plants, vehicles and equipment are all recorded in the system, with the ability to assign forms, instruction manuals and relevant documents to each asset, all accessible in the field. Users can also assign QR codes against assets, enabling real-time location and usage tracking.
No matter the amount of assets, Re-flow enables administrative staff to gain a detailed overview of locations, usage and status at a moment’s notice. Automations can even be used to update statuses and trigger defects based on forms submitted in the field, with maintenance or MOTs being scheduled automatically as a result.
Location tracking doesn’t just end with assets. Re-flow also provides support for live user tracking, providing a map view of teams and individual operatives. This not only enables unparalleled oversight, but also allows administrative teams to be more reactive, able to assign nearby operatives at a moment’s notice should unexpected changes arise.
At this stage, businesses will also need more tools to track their performance and chart the path forward for further growth and success. Re-flow’s forms can go a step beyond H&S management, enabling bespoke KPIs to be harvested. The form builder enables existing forms to be tweaked, or new ones to be built from scratch, all to regulatory standards.
Data and KPIs tracked through these forms can then be easily collated into exportable PDF reports. These can then be easily shared internally or sent to clients and key stakeholders to ensure everyone is in the loop. This information can then be used to identify opportunities, form strategies and pave a path to future growth.
3. Enterprise Businesses
Businesses at the forefront of the industry can benefit from all of these features and even go a step beyond, integrating Re-flow as the field management component of their wider enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Companies spanning multiple regions, or even the entire country, are often tasked with managing hundreds of employees across multiple large-scale projects. To effectively manage all of these moving parts, many businesses employ the use of software solutions, each with their own area of expertise. Be this CRM, accounting, or fleet management.
To avoid falling into the trap that siloed systems bring, these solutions are integrated together to form a business-wide ERP, with connectors and APIs enabling a seamless flow of information from system to system, and department to department.
Re-flow is no different. The software offers several built-in connectors, including HubSpot, Xero, Sage Business Accounting and Intuit QuickBooks – enabling off-the-shelf compatibility with popular services. For more bespoke requirements, however, Re-flow’s enterprise clients have access to a REST API, facilitating integration through third-party connectors.
With every part of field operations streamlined, and digital transformation achieved business-wide through an ERP, businesses can take confidence in the flexibility, scalability and sustainability of Re-flow as their dedicated field management platform.
Conclusion
For hundreds of businesses across the UK, Re-flow has proven to be an invaluable partner in their journey towards efficicency, sustainability and growth.
The scalable solution enables business to adapt to changing circumstances, take on more significant challenges, and confidently chart a course for long-term success while eliminating numerous logistical headaches.
Whether a small, local business or a large, nationwide enterprise, Re-flow is a tool ready to scale with the ambition of its users.
