Tomas Zilka, Vice President of Operations for Pihl Excavating, needed to reduce the risk of potential job opportunities being lost or forgotten over time. With stakes high for picking the wrong jobs from the overwhelming number of leads coming in, Zilka was looking for one dashboard where he could see the status of all current bids, upcoming opportunities, and the workload of crews on active jobs. HeavyBid Pre-Construction was exactly what they needed to improve the odds of always bidding the right jobs.
“I am in the Pre-Construction software every single day,” said Zilka. “It helps us understand what is on our plate, and how to continue to develop metrics for improving,” Zilka explained that losing even one possible lead was not an option if they wanted to protect Pihl’s future. In order to manage this goal without hiring new people, the company provided application access to every person that could contribute something important. By including team members from every department, they have built an army that is capable of spotting risk more easily.
Their cross-department collaboration allows the team to get through more leads faster, and provide even more detail to put the best opportunities at the top of their list. Their users can also easily switch between jobs, see what is missing, and jump in to help qualify that lead.
Collaboration with Project Managers
To ensure that every lead is the best fit for all parties involved, Zilka and his team compare the most urgent opportunities against the workload of their Project Managers inside the software. “You can have a really good price, and you can have a really good project, but the client can have a very bad experience (or we can have a very bad experience), if you have clashing personalities,” says Zilka. “For this purpose, we manage the workload of jobs assigned to each manager, and using HCSS we can find a good match from available Project Managers to the next opportunity. This is a matter of ensuring quality to get the best experience.”
Pihl has replaced all of their old spreadsheets with Pre-Construction. This has strengthened their collaboration, organization, and follow-up since implementation. The more users that they have contributing to qualifying a lead equals more eyes to ensure the success of winning those jobs. They have also used the system to improve how their departments share critical information and maximize meeting efficiency.
“I can come in the morning, and take a look at Pre-Construction, and see where the estimating team is,” said Zilka. “I can prepare questions so that when I go to their department meetings, I already know what I want to ask them to decide if a project is a good fit, if we have all the right information, and if everyone is doing their part.” Each person can do their own research from the system, and come prepared the same way.
In fact, they have become so efficient at collaborating with each potential lead as their bid dates approach, that they are able to quickly respond to overflow from partners that have too much on their plate. “Every opportunity and every lead is important for growth,” said Zilka. “We have companies calling us for help, and we can easily schedule their work without overextending our operations.”
With HeavyBid Pre-Construction, Pihl is able to increase their communication and collaboration and save potentially lost opportunities. They can prioritize the time-sensitive jobs, and give priority to at-risk ones that might have gone forgotten over time. Not only that, they have improved the quality of internal meetings such that everyone can understand their role, and help each other before it becomes too late to save a prospective job opportunity.
