Maestro Technologies - Intelligent management software for the construction industry.

True collaboration for outstanding results.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada Read short version

Craig Bennett and Kathy Hill give us their give us some examples of their experience with maestro*.

Please tell us about your company and industry dynamics

Craig Bennett: Avenue Road has been in business in the Greater Toronto Area since 1975. We provide re-roofing services to the residential, commercial and industrial sectors, specializing in roofing, building envelope, maintenance and repairs. I’ve been in the roofing business for approximately 25 years and about 22 of those years I spent with this company.

Can you tell us about the business situation that led to new software research?

Craig Bennett: We have experienced considerable growth over the years, and processes we had in place since the beginning were no longer efficient. We were not keeping up with our business growth. Our previous computer software system had been a homemade application and serviced us well for a number of years. As we reached a certain customer volume, however, it was no longer sufficient. We faced day-to-day challenges. It was hurting our team spirit. When we needed to access data very quickly, we had to detour data between departments. We duplicated, even triplicated, many of our entries. It became very apparent that we could be more efficient. We felt that we could cut costs substantially if we could find a solution that would allow us to intelligently streamline our processes.

So you were looking for a solution that would help you be more efficient, more responsive to your clients. How did you find out about Maestro‘s solutions and why did you go with them?

Craig Bennett: We looked intensively at a number of the so-called “well-known” software suppliers and vendors. When Maestro approached us, we were quite impressed. The people at Maestro demonstrated their willingness to understand our business and, more importantly, listen to what it was we required. One of the things that I observed in the selection process was that with these so-called name brand providers, we had to adapt our processes to their products. Maestro*’s unique selling point was that it would adapt to us.

When you are running a multi-million dollar business involving over 200 employees, you can’t have the world come to a stop to accommodate the process that’s being installed. Maestro was willing to work through our day-to-day processes and implement its solution in ways that allowed us to minimize interruptions to our operations and clients. I think that was the key reason behind our decision. It was done in a collaborative way, which was great for us.

It strikes me that what maestro* does is rather unique because it is focused primarily on the construction industry. The other companies that approached us were offering one-size-fits-all solutions. It seems to me that Maestro has a better understanding of what our industry requires.
We had, to name a few, Microsoft and IBM here in the beginning, but they did not seem to be real competitors. They tended to offer more accounting-oriented applications, give more generic solutions and sell the consulting separately. With Maestro, you buy from a company that knows our industry.

I understand that you were having a difficult time finding a single business solution to integrate your telemarketing, sales, operations and accounting teams. Can you describe the key changes following maestro*’s implementation?

Craig Bennett: As a company with 40,000 customers, we needed to bring a higher level of control to our processes and be able to speed up our ability to access customer information, reference our previous customer files and relay the information to our sales and production teams. We needed a system that would help us maintain the quality and professionalism that people have come to expect from us. We saw maestro* as the missing piece of the puzzle.

Kathy Hill: Since we have used maestro*, things have become more streamlined. We are now able to get information on how the company is doing from a management perspective. Statistics and reports are now much easier to generate. Before, we had several databases with all this information. We had to search through different applications to gather vital information and put it together manually. With maestro*, it is all integrated on one dashboard and reports are easy to produce.

So after all the effort and time you invested in building your own company systems to monitor customer quality and process, you found that maestro* was the next logical step to helping you pull that together?

Craig Bennett: In the first place, I had trouble getting my head around on how we were going to adapt things that we were doing here for literally 30 years. The primary advantage of maestro* was that we didn’t have to change our ways. We had the software adapted to our processes, so it kept disruption to a minimum and allowed us to quickly reach that service standard we were trying to obtain. We didn’t have to compromise any of the processes and procedures behind the success of Avenue Road Roofing. Maestro* proved to be adaptable to our existing processes.

How did Avenue Road Roofing adapt to maestro*?

Kathy Hill: I think we did very well. The biggest reaction I got was from my sales administrator. Before maestro*, we had to put customers names, addresses, phone numbers and all relevant information in four different places. With over 60 jobs to enter each day, it was a tremendous amount of work for her to do. When I showed her what she doesn’t have to do anymore and what she can do now with maestro*, she had the biggest smile on her face—she was very happy. When we saw all the possibilities, we were amazed.

How would you describe the main advantages of working with maestro*?

Craig Bennett: With maestro*, we could access our customer information very quickly. The fact that we eliminated data entry duplication saved us a tremendous amount of labour costs. In the past, irregularities occurred in our data management. We were not getting the most out of it. For years, we had literally a sea of filing cabinets with untapped resources. Maestro* offered us the opportunity to access that client information and re-market to those customers. Centralizing our data basically translated into more business for our company.

Kathy Hill: Project costing is very important to us. The maestro*project-costing module allows us to look closely at each project and see how we’re doing. By knowing exactly how we did on each job, we can drastically improve our project-costing process. The Customer Relation Management module was a beautiful tool that Maestro customized for us. It brought everything together. Since all client information is readily available, we have better contact with them. Having precise information helps us contact them at exactly the right time. They sense that we know what we are talking about. We can even measure how well our promotional campaigns are working.

So the costing not only helps you to keep an eye on job profits, but also to learn from the past, so that the new jobs are more efficient.

Kathy Hill: If one of our teams is producing a lower profit than expected, maestro* allows us to find out why it’s not meeting expectations. The teams that generate higher profits can be detailed-analyzed to see and reproduce what they did right. Maestro* allows us to quickly make corrections, if required, get the actual cost and apply it against the estimated cost. You can see who was on budget, what needs to be corrected, and which sales were not realistically estimated. The job-costing module really helps with that.

How about security? You deal with lots of information, sensitive customer information, business information and financial information. Bringing everything together in one solution and giving everybody access to it can be a problem in that area. Was maestro* able to help you with that as well?

Craig Bennett: Yes, absolutely. We are dealing with credit card payments, financing information for customers and we have a duty to protect this information. Going forward, we wanted to enhance the security component of our software. Maestro* was able to fill that gap in a very reliable way.

Which modules had the strongest impact on your business management and why?

Craig Bennett: It was our Customer Relation Management module and probably the largest singular advantage was the ability to draw information very quickly. We have a number of operators in our call centre and we want our customers, particularly our longtime customers, to feel that they are part of the family. It’s a wonderful advantage to have an operator speak to one of our customers and know their past history in terms of the buildings they own, the work we’ve done, their payment histories and so forth. That demonstrates that you are on the ball and it better reflects your professionalism. It also adds a personal touch that can make a big difference.

Is one of the benefits with the CRM module for you is that it is part of the standard package?

Kathy Hill: Yes, the CRM module is part of maestro*. So when a call becomes a sale, it goes from our sales department as a project, which is set up automatically by maestro*. We don’t have to do anything. All we do is tell the program that this call became a sale and it goes right to our production department. They can open it, look at the cost, see the budgets and monitor the projects through maestro*.

Are there any modules that you intend to use in the future and why?

Craig Bennett: We are in the process of implementing a number of modules. In our warehouse, for example, inventory control is something very important to us. We know that we lose a significant amount of money each year on shrinkage and inventory loss, so the inventory control module is essential. The sales estimating module is the next logical step. It links the Customer Relation Management module to all that is used by our inbound operators and is able to relay the information directly to our sales people in the field. The next step will involve streamlining the work order process, which will eliminate errors and duplication, translating into savings on labour. We will be able to get those customer orders into our production area instantly—literally—from the moment that a customer decides to work with us. We also want to implement the sales estimating and work order modules. The project-costing module will be very important to us in the future.

Kathy Hill: We always had a vision of our sales reps being out in the field, at the customer’s house and being able to draw an estimate right there on the spot, printing it out for the customer and, at the same time, entering it into our system, so we know exactly, nearly instantly, what quotes have been done out there. Maestro* is very compatible with Excel, so I know that it’s no problem bringing together our previous way of doing things with what maestro*’ is offering. Having gone through the process of implementation, I know that maestro* can readily integrate our sales and estimating modules.

So on top of what you experienced with maestro*, you see lots of potential savings by implementing more modules?

Craig Bennett: Well, this is what’s interesting. We didn’t fully appreciate just how much value we would be able to gain. Initially, we started out with a particular set of issues we were trying to solve, from using the software and being able to gather certain reports. The information stream that has become available with maestro* opened our eyes to numerous areas of the company that can be refined, where savings can be had, where you can streamline your processes.

When you buy software, it is not very tangible. Basically, it costs money and you know you’re going to end up with it. Maestro* offers something tangible for a business to see, showing that the investment made in the software repays itself already in the first year...Maestro* has been a smart investment.

In the roofing business, customers typically require new products every 15-30 years. Can you tell us how important your historical data is and how maestro* has been able to help you manage this information?

Craig Bennett: For Avenue Road Roofing, past customers are actually our top source of lead generation and, as a result, our central files are critical to our success. So being able to use maestro* to isolate particular groups of customers, whether or not they are commercial clients of a certain vintage, certainly gives us the ability to chose and focus on certain groups.

Installing a system that impacts all areas of your business can be very invasive. How has Maestro helped you manage the transition?

Craig Bennett: Maestro designated an implementation specialist specifically for our account. He came in, observed our processes and, once he had a good understanding of the operation, he was able to work with our team, whatever their roles were. The personal approach made it a lot less intimidating and a lot easier for our employees to actually understand how the transition to maestro* would impact their jobs. In other words, they were not resistant to change. They did not feel the fear that is often perpetuated when people see change on the horizon. Maestro’s trainer was excellent in terms of how he interacted with everyone. He made them comfortable. He took as much time as he needed to make sure that each staff member would feel confident using the software. We had no interruption to our daily operations, which is probably the most important thing. Technology can be very intimidating, so the personalized approach worked well with us. This is key when implementing something of this magnitude. After all, we are not software specialists; we are roofers. It actually worked out to be quite simple and painless.

As a result of this personalized implementation approach, did you find the level of employee acceptance higher than expected?

Craig Bennett: Oh, our employees’ reaction was far better than I expected. In fact, even when we were looking into changing our management technology, you could sense the anxiety among many of our key participants. This is why the approach that Maestro took in terms of getting feedback from our people doing the actual job, then adapting the software to their processes, made it easy for our employees to accept the new software program and feel comfortable using it.

What would you say were your clients’ benefits from your investment in maestro*?

Craig Bennett: Avenue Road Roofing is a key player in the Greater Toronto Area. Anything that helps us be more professional and more efficient translates into greater customer confidence. Particularly when you’re high profile in the city and you’re one of the leaders in the industry, you need procedures and processes in place that respond to customer expectations.

I think it would be very fair to say that we have a much higher degree of control over our processes and certainly new possibilities in terms how we can better leverage our opportunities moving forward. We benefited greatly financially in making this change. We can obtain efficiency very quickly and make smarter, faster decisions.

At Avenue Road Roofing, it takes a lot of effort to build business metrics. Did maestro* help you better stay on top of these metrics?

Craig Bennett: Previously, we had to manually gather data from various departments to generate multiple reports, which had to be distributed throughout the company. The beauty of maestro* is that, in every process and division of the company, data is single-entry captured. There are multiple sophisticated reports that are now available with maestro*, so information is accessible quickly and you can act on it.

How would you describe your investment in maestro* as a success story?

Kathy Hill: For a long time, we wanted an integrated system. Our previous accounting software was bought in 1997 for the purpose of integrating our whole company, but it never happened. It really didn’t fit us. Even though they had modules in there, we never went anywhere near to what we had hoped. So I used it for the last 10 years as an accounting program. I never used the other modules. So the biggest success with maestro* was having our dreams come true. After looking at many other software programs, maestro* was the one that best fit us. It went in very smoothly without disrupting our day-to-day activities. Our receptionist in the front said that she had worked for a lot of companies before and this is the smoothest transition into new software that she had ever seen.

If someone called you today and asked you about maestro*, what would you say?

Kathy Hill: I would tell them that it would be a good move on their part and it would be a good business decision, because that’s what it was for us. It was a lot of hard work, but you have to expect that if your goal is to have an integrated system. Since we have maestro*, we are running smoothly. It’s doing more than what we even knew it could do. So if I did talk to someone who asked me about maestro*, I would tell them that it would only do good things for them, too.