Webcor's industry is highly competitive. To maintain and build on its leadership position, the company's employees must be able to clearly communicate and quickly respond to a wide range of stakeholders, including customers, architects, contractors and manufacturers. This case study details how Good™ Mobile Messaging helped Webcor employees stay on top of things.
CASE STUDY
Constructing a Better Mobile
Communications System.
"Having Good devices allows us to be more responsive and accountable to our contractors, subcontractors, and owners, and allows decisions and information about our jobs to ? ow more effortlessly and quickly."
- Gregg Davis, CIO, Webcor Builders
Consistently ranked among the Forbes 500 largest privately-owned companies, Webcor is a recognized leader in commercial construction. The Northern California-based builder currently has over $2.6 billion in construction business under contract, with eight permanent of? ces and 32 temporary jobsites.
The ChallengeWebcor's industry is highly competitive. To maintain and build on its leadership position, the company's employees must be able to clearly communicate and quickly respond to a wide range of stakeholders including customers, architects, contractors and manufacturers. "The availability and responsiveness of our employees can often mean the difference between winning or losing a contract or getting a job done on time," says Gregg Davis, CIO for Webcor. "It is critical that our employees be able to effectively communicate whether they are in the of? ce, on the road or at one of our construction sites." Because of this, Webcor continuously strives to improve the effectiveness of its communications systems and set out to bring high-availability phone and e-mail communications directly to each one of its job sites, without requiring multiple devices or complicated application development on the backend. Webcor also wanted to reduce the use of laptop computers to lower hardware and support costs, and reduce the instances of damaged and stolen equipment.
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Webcor Builders At-a-GlanceBUSINESS CHALLENGE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION PAYOFFTo maintain and build its leadership position, Good Mobile Messaging on the Palm Treo . Increased customer satisfaction by Webcor needed to improve the way its with service from Verizon gives Webcor a improving onsite communications and employees communicated with customers, responsive mobile communications system responsiveness.architects, contractors and manufacturers with enterprise e-mail access, OTA synchro- . Lowered costs by reducing the number of while on the road or at any of the company's nization and centralized IT management, all lost, stolen or damaged laptop computers.construction sites. with a built-in phone and PDA. . Increased worker productivity by providing e-mail, phone and PDA functionality in a single, integrated device.The Solution As Gregg Davis, CIO of Webcor puts it, "Having Webcor had invested in hardware and software Good devices allows us to be more responsive and ® ®applications based on Palm OS, making a Palm - accountable to our contractors, subcontractors, and based solution a key requirement. This effectively owners, and allows decisions and information about ®eliminated proprietary systems such as RIM Black- our jobs to ? ow more effortlessly and quickly." ®Berry devices. Laptops with Wi-Fi access offered poor connectivity within the steel and concrete The GoodT solution has increased productivity and environments of the company's job sites. And other ef? ciency at every level of Webcor's organization. e-mail devices still required users to carry a cell It enables workers to be more responsive to their phone and a laptop or PDA to manage their day- constituents and maintain project work? ow with to-day business. faster communications and decision making. Onsite staff can walk the job, manage day-to-Good Mobile Messaging on the Palm TreoT with day decisions, update changes, review designs service from Verizon provided the ideal solution. It and answer questions all without leaving the job allowed Webcor to create the responsive commu- site. Davis believes this translates into direct cost nications system it needed, including enterprise savings: "The faster we can get information, the e-mail access, Over-the-Air (OTA) synchronization more we can save time, save money, increase and centralized IT management, all with a rugged productivity and have happier clients." built-in phone and PDA for instant access to tasks, scheduling, calendaring and other key functions. According to Davis, the Good solution also saves the company money by reducing the numb... [download for more]
