Sage’s Enterprise Management Construction solution enables medium to larger construction companies to meet industry-specific challenges head on.
By Janice Hoppe-Spiers, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media
In an increasingly complex global marketplace, Sage specializes in serving today’s business builders with a new generation of solutions to manage everything from money to people. “Re-imagining business is not about playing catch up, it’s about leapfrogging the competition,” the company says. “Too often businesses make decisions based on what’s in the rear-view mirror rather than the headlights. We combine social, mobile, real-time technology to put live information at your fingertips so you can make fast, informed decisions.”
The company recently rebranded Sage X3 to Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management. The Enterprise Management platform is used by more than 6,000 organizations globally, with a majority being in manufacturing, distribution or services. Sage allows customers to move up through its portfolio of applications as their business needs change.
“Everything we do starts and finishes with building customers for life by offering them choice, support, expertise and innovation,” says Eric McCashey, director of product marketing enterprise. “It means offering them choice rather than forcing change upon them and letting them know we’ll be ready to go when they are.
“The challenge is to identify customers who have outgrown their current product and introduce them to an alternative solution without them thinking there is a problem with the existing application,” he continues. “Enterprise Management was a perfect platform to customize for construction because whether we like to admit it or not, construction is actually discrete manufacturing.”
Empowered Stakeholders
Enterprise Management Construction – formerly known as Sage X3 Construction and part of the Enterprise Management solution – empowers project managers and other stakeholders to better manage the entire construction project lifecycle. It captures more granular, work-in-progress project and financial data using one integrated system. Sage leveraged its more than 30-year history of providing business applications to deliver a completely modern and mobile enterprise management solution. Using this platform and built from the ground up, Enterprise Management Construction addresses the complexity and risks faced by today’s mid-tier to larger construction firms. 
Enterprise Management Construction delivers a data-driven, unified experience built on the proven Enterprise Management platform. Today, the industry solution offers core capabilities for complete construction lifecycle management including: project management, contract and subcontract management, estimating, project financial and cash flow management, project document management, timesheet support and project visualization and analytics.
Enterprise Management Construction integrates with other Sage solutions, including HR, payroll and CRM products. It also integrates with other third-party applications such as Oracle Primavera and Microsoft Project. “This is a fully integrated solution from the Sage ecosystem,” according to Chris Wiener, CEO of Specialized Application Workshop {SAW} and Software Mill, developer of Enterprise Management Construction. “Enterprise Management Construction gives its customers a unique experience. It works right out of the box and does what it says it does.”
Continued Refinement
The first changes to the solution were made in March 2017 to include a project management module that understood project flow and a cash flow analysis module. Enterprise Management Construction also understands contractual relationships and is flexible enough to accommodate them.
Sage launched Version 2.0 in January to further expand its product functionality and better serve the entire construction industry. The update to the Enterprise Management Construction platform enhanced the functionality of Job Cards and Work Packages to make it easier for a smaller team to facilitate.
Version 2.0 allowed companies to calculate and report fractional progress with each activity update in Job Cards to better understand the true amount of work performed. Work Packages – groupings of resources such as labor, materials and equipment needed to complete a task – were also enriched in the new version with the development of an abstracted Bill of Quantities that provided for unspecified material selection.
Although Job Cards and Work Packages saw the most changes in version 2.0, other aspects of Enterprise Management Construction continue to be refined. “We have been looking to add a vehicle and equipment assets management module and we’re working to create the next-generation of asset management,” Wiener says. “If you have construction assets, watch this space.”
“We are looking at contractors, service and facility management companies as part of our next development cycle,” Wiener says. “We need to make sure we are delivering excitement to the industry through a unified single interface. A ticket can be raised in the portal, the service desk can dispatch for maintenance services and material inventory can be drawn from the warehouse. It’s all automated processes that have enabled greater capabilities for facilities and service management.”
Enterprise Management Construction is used mostly by construction project managers, site supervisors and construction and quality field team leads to cost, plan and report construction progress. But the goal with the new architectural changes is to broaden its reach to more end-users. “This is a big change in terms of having everything tied together with accounts payable, receivables, inventory and control systems,” Wiener says. “Those relationships can get very complicated.”
Customer Feedback
Customer input plays a key role in expanding the functionality of Enterprise Management Construction. A business partner advisory committee made up of existing and potential users was established to evaluate the system and recommend changes through surveys and discussions on workflow and features.
The results of these discussions have been and will continue to be incorporated into the upgrades to ensure Sage’s platform stays on the cutting-edge of technology. For example, significant effort was placed on improving customer access to information, decision-making and execution of those decisions because users said they wanted to achieve a result in the least amount of clicks.
“The product is developed by a growing team that understands the underlying logic of the system and is capable of creating the new features that fit seamlessly into its overall performance,” Wiener says. “Each stop on the Enterprise Management Construction roadmap was selected because of its value to the client. We know what the problems are in the industry and we’re setting up the tools to solve those problems long-term.”
According to Wiener, “Many of the legacy systems still in use today have not kept pace with the kind of real-time data collection and dissemination that Enterprise Management Construction offers.”
Faster than Ever
Enterprise Management Construction runs every aspect of a construction business faster than ever before. It quickly adapts to users’ changing needs, driving efficiency and helping them manage cost and quality to complete profitable projects on time and within budget.
Here are some key features of the platform:
Project Management
- Project cash flow
- Contract management
- Project/job costing
- Subcontract management
- Procurement including RFP management
- Transmittal control
Financial and Accounting
- Financial and operational asset management
- Dimensional cost center analysis to track and manage impact of initiatives
- Bank, loan and cash management with full cash flow visibility and modeling
- Cost and analytical accounting with internal requisitions and cost/budget transfers
- Budget commitments and planning
- Capital asset policy management, means-testing and reporting
- Full audit capabilities
Estimating
- Import estimates from Sage Estimating and third-party estimating applications
- Provide regional historical pricing data to support estimate accuracy
Payroll and HR Integration*
- Timesheet collection
- Integrated HRM
- Employee self-service
- Localized payroll
Customer Service
- Customer self-service portal
- Integration with customer service management module
Document Management and Transmission Control
- Maintaining documents for the official record
- Integration with third-party collaboration suites
- Document approval for release
- Document transmission
- Approved document/plan distribution to field teams
- Version management
- Comprehensive transmission tracking with date and time stamping
Reporting and Analytics
- Visual key performance indicators
- Real-time reporting and analytics
- Financial reporting with full roll-up and consolidations
- Project work breakdown structure (WBS) visualization
- Earned Value Analysis at multiple levels within the WBS
Workflow and Automated Alerts
- Embedded workflow automation and alerts
- Role-based workspace and dashboards
- Automated project and role-based access controls
Technology and Integration
- Runs in a browser on any device
- Scalable to thousands of users
- Seamless integration to external applications
- Supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL
- Customized integration and development platform
- Pre-built integration with Oracle Primavera and Microsoft Project
- Microsoft Office integration
- Mobile Apps
*Sage HCM solutions, including Sage People, are optional integrated solutions available for purchase.
