Ananda Development Boosts Efficiency by 40%

Ananda is a fast-growing real estate developer with an internal technology innovation team that builds and finds technologies to help the business deliver standout results. Chief Technology Officer Wiphak Trakanrungsi spearheads the division and said "One of our company values is to build a landmark - not just square, boxy, highrise condominiums, but eye-catching buildings that can be spotted from a distance." Ananda relies heavily on technology in order to deliver these cutting edge projects. "We care a lot about technology, and we use technology to achieve business targets. Our goal is to find a creative way to implement technology across our entire project lifecycle, and our innovation team has become a group that the rest of the company trusts to bring technologies that improve day-to-day operations."

The Challenge

Wiphak explained that the technology team proactively looks for areas that could be improved with better technology. "When we reviewed our end-to-end business process, we could see that our construction team still used Microsoft Project and Excel to do their work, so it was the obvious choice for us to look deeper into this. And without much looking, we could see the constant problems that our construction teams had. Critical information was scattered across multiple systems like Google Drive, One Drive, and email. It was very difficult to effectively communicate and gain stakeholder alignment." So Ananda set out to find a modern project management platform.

The Solution

"We needed an end-to-end project management platform that connects all of our processes and information in one place," said Wiphak. Ananda’s team evaluated multiple different solutions on the market in order to find the best fit. According to Wiphak, "We found that Procore was the solution we were looking for to connect our information and people. We decided to adopt Procore for several reasons: Procore offers ease of use and straightforward subcontractor management, and we like the fact that Procore has a strong app marketplace." Procore’s open API and extensibility were key values for a tech-savvy, innovative company such as Ananda.

A true platform enables data insights

As with most Procore customers, Ananda initially set out to implement Procore for course-of-construction processes. The tech innovation team uses Procore’s open API to provide a custom dashboard with the construction-level insights most important to their business. "We have a construction dashboard which relies on Procore data. All of the project managers use it to monitor the health of the timeline and budget, and progress, giving them early warning of areas that could be at risk, and helping us avoid issues with schedule, cost, and quality. All of this is possible because we have standardized data, consolidated in one platform."

Pushing the benefits beyond the construction phase

Once Ananda was up and running on Procore for the construction phase, it realized the potential to expand the use of Procore further, in order to support projects in earlier phases. Wiphak explained that once they started using Procore, "We already had good data on construction. Now, in order to provide a more comprehensive view, we need to start extracting preconstruction information and processes and bring them on board to Procore." Ananda has defined 14 critical points within the construction lifecycle, half of which are in the preconstruction phase. Ananda’s team is working to onboard these seven critical preconstruction milestones into Procore, because, as Wiphak explained, "we will be able to improve efficiency of our end-to-end journey."

Leveraging Procore during preconstruction

Ananda’s team is already "using Procore’s strength as a collaboration tool and central repository of all related information" to enhance their preconstruction processes. For example, Ananda uses Procore to manage project kickoff. Wiphak explained that project kickoff, "involves several different teams – such as land acquisition, design, construction, and several others. The logistics of meetings, communication, and information-sharing can be very tricky and time-consuming. Previously we tracked this in Microsoft Project or spreadsheets - but everybody had separate views of the project." They needed a better solution, so they turned to Procore. "Now that we have started onboarding this critical process to Procore, we can see the immediate benefit - everyone has the same information and visibility into the project."Ananda also leverages Procore to implement a design gate and checklist review process for permitting. Wiphak described that, "a lot of detailed information such as surveys, design, and legal documents are required during this step to get the construction permit, and timing is vital." Because permitting involves working with government agencies, any information errors or omissions can lead to costly delays. Wiphak explained, "We plan to build checklists, and map them with documents to ensure that important information is not missing or incomplete….After we onboard this critical process to Procore, we expect a lower number of permit rejections, and to get approved with much less effort."

Results

Since bringing on Procore in 2018, Ananda has already deeply embedded Procore into their operations. "Ananda uses Procore heavily to collaborate with our contractors and subcontractors," said Wiphak. And Ananda is seeing the benefits. "Since we implemented Procore in 2018, we’ve noticed an improvement in how quickly our team can execute project administrative tasks. And when we put a rough comparison between before we started using Procore and after, we can see significant improvement - with more than 40% improvements in our efficiency."

With the help of their creative and energetic tech innovation team, Ananda will only continue to expand their use of Procore in their quest to deliver first-rate projects. "Our goal is to find a creative way to implement technology across our entire project lifecycle. And Procore is one of the power trains we use to drive our business day-to-day."