Background

Davis Langdon and Seah International is a global construction and property consultancy with a strong presence in Australia. In Australia, Davis Langdon provides independent professional services to the property, development, construction, infrastructure and related industries. These services include project and cost management, building surveying, urban planning, specification consulting, independent verification for large infrastructure projects, third party certification, and a range of services to property owners around value and risk management.

With 55 years of service to the South Pacific region, the wider global group dates back to 1919 and has more than 5,000 professional staff in 102 offices across 25 countries around the world.

Challenge

As a consultancy that manages projects throughout Australia on behalf of clients, Davis Langdon’s systems and processes are crucial to maintaining the company's competitive advantage. With this in mind, Davis Langdon undertook a market review and request for information from a variety of suppliers of portfolio and project management systems.

In 2007, Davis Langdon expressed interest in deploying an enterprise-wide portfolio and project management system that would replace five existing disparate applications, as well as integrate with staff, accounting and customer relationship management systems. The application would enhance the company’s capability in contract management, time management, issues and risks tracking, and change control. As Davis Langdon’s activities are client facing, and interactions with the client are integral to project success, an ability to integrate email and standardise the brand was essential to the effectiveness of the deployment.

The system requirements also needed to provide crucial practice management capabilities, such as submission win loss ratios, revenue growth tracking, project profitability, key performance indicator dashboard reporting and staff utilisation monitoring.

Solution

Davis Langdon selected mbh to streamline and integrate the company’s project management and business management processes and systems, so that project work is more efficient and effective and internal decisions more robust. mbh implemented a large change program that included deploying its leading enterprise portfolio and project management software product, UniPhi.

UniPhi's implementation allowed Davis Langdon to evolve business and project management processes, while obtaining an immediate benefit in productivity improvements. UniPhi's core philosophy is integration of disparate systems. This is achieved in two ways: creating a system that manages the nine functions of project management as defined in the Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge (PMBOK); and through the design of a system that is capable of integrating seamlessly with other systems. To date, mbh has integrated UniPhi with MS Project, Microsoft Exchange Server, Outlook and Sun accounting systems, along with SugarCRM Customer Relationship Management systems.

The system provides key data to be 'rolled up' and presented at the executive-level of the business, as well as prioritising work lists for staff. UniPhi's timesheeting and integration with Sun accounting provides project profitability and the ability to manage forward workload.

Results

"There is no doubt that UniPhi has enabled our people to do more, to understand better where projects are and to embed an ability for our projects and business tenders to measure achievements," said Mark Beattie, Managing Director, Davis Langdon Australia.

"The process of change we needed to go through was significant. Regardless of which system we chose, we needed to change our thinking towards a structured, open flow of information where our old habits of personal information were put behind us. Our journey was made so much easier with the support of mbh and the practical, no nonsense approach of the UniPhi system," he continued.

"Today, we have a true enterprise management system that leads us towards better outcomes for our clients and ourselves," concluded Mr Beattie.