Get the Construction Project Done Cheaper and Faster Without Sacrificing Quality

A few colleagues and I recently exhibited at the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on behalf of Egnyte. We used this construction-focused conference to share with attendees how Egnyte can easily solve some key pain points for construction companies. Having worked at Egnyte for nearly five years in various sales and professional services roles, I have seen the success first-hand and shared our story many times.Before I arrived, I was looking forward to spending my days talking with attendees about how Egnyte can benefit AEC organizations, and my evenings eating local food and drinking local rum. And, luckily, my expectations were not let down upon arrival in San Juan. The city is rich with culture; the beaches are beautiful; and that first mojito was better than any I’ve ever tasted (it had cilantro substituted for mint, delightful)!We were hit early and often with traffic in our booth. During peak times, I was running around scanning badges, taking notes, passing out business cards and holding multiple conversations at once trying to accommodate everyone interested in learning how Egnyte could help their businesses. I spoke with people representing general contractors, as well as subcontractors of companies ranging from 15 to 150,000 employees.As fun as it was during these busy hours, I found conversations with attendees, customers and prospects even more valuable during the off times. We discussed an array of topics during this time – many related to the NCAA tournament and not Egnyte; nonetheless, customers were excited to tell us how much we improved their day-to-day work. We even had a few customers interrupt our pitch to other prospects to let us know how we help them alleviate some of the headaches affiliated with certain business processes.One customer put it into perspective telling me about how he used to have to drive back to headquarters, sometimes hours away, to make changes to a given plan and print it out. Then he’d have to drive back (typically the next day) to the job site to distribute the updated plan. In addition to losing a day and the cost of printing these plans, there were many mistakes made due to working off old plans – mistakes that led to higher costs, longer projects, and smaller margins.With Egnyte, not only can he work from the trailer at the job site to make his changes (or from his pickup truck for smaller projects), he and his team also always have access to the latest plans from their iPads. The only thing he was more excited about than Egnyte was his Auburn Tigers (War Eagle Richard!).Another client that stopped by gave me an interesting spin that I hadn’t really considered before. He taught me about the Project Management Triangle that he learned about early in his construction career:

Get the Construction Project Done Cheaper and Faster Without Sacrificing Quality - Egnyte Blog

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The triangle places Time, Cost, and Quality on the three corners. He explained that traditionally you had to choose two on any given project. To be quick and cheap, you could not offer a high quality; to be quick and high quality, the project would be expensive; and to be cheap and high quality, the project would not be completed quickly. In 25 years, he found this to be universally true; then, his general contracting company started using Egnyte.Egnyte enabled ready-to-go access to his files, whether he was in the office connected to the server, at a job site trailer connected to a NAS, or in the field from his mobile devices. Egnyte allowed him to spin up new projects in minutes and securely share large files with subcontractors from any of his devices. These subcontractors required auditable and revocable access to content because, as he put it, “we work with them on one job and then turn around and compete with them on the next.” All of this added up to being able to work more quickly and cheaper than ever, without sacrificing on the scope and quality of a given project and pulling in greater profit margins.Back at Egnyte after an amazing experience where I was able to really feel first-hand the pain points of the industry (many of which we have solved), I have yet another reason why I like to come into the office every day. It’s more exciting to work for Egnyte now than it was five years ago when I first started. Hearing directly from our customers and partners about how we’re helping their businesses and day-to-day work makes my job that much more fulfilling, and helps us better focus on the real needs of this industry to provide new features and solutions. These experiences rivaled the cilantro mojito and ocean view. All and all, it was a great week in Puerto Rico. We’re definitely looking forward to the next AGC event in Georgia on April 29. If you’re there, be sure to stop by our booth.

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