How ProEst helped meet the need for efficiency and collaboration

Background:
Over the past 30+ years, Wisconsin-based Corporate Contractors, Inc. (CCI) has completed thousands of construction projects across the country, including the design and build of new industrial sites and community assets and the revitalization of historic landmarks and commercial buildings. Their Beloit-based quarry provides sand and limestone aggregate for a variety of roadway and construction needs. CCI has grown to include 175 employees in two locations and currently serves a mix of corporate and public sector clients. Last year, the company prepared 200+ estimates and generated $100M+ in revenue, with projected growth of 10-20% annually for the next five years.

Overview:
Before moving to the Proest platform, CCI had used both PlanSwift and ProContractor to prepare takeoffs and project estimates, but with a growing number of proposals to prepare and submit, the company began to explore alternatives, all of which proved to be either too costly—or unwieldy—for their needs. Ultimately, CCI acted on a recommendation from the ProCore team and selected ProEst as their estimating solution in 2018. To Preconstruction Manager Steve Ebling and colleague Mike Magill, who spearheaded the search, ProEst offered an ideal combination of affordability and a “user-friendly” cloud-based interface.

The Benefits Of Seamless Integration:
When ProEst was first introduced to CCI estimators in 2018, Ebling was new to the company, yet quickly came to appreciate how the ProEst platform better served CCI’s need for a faster, more efficient estimating process. The integration factor, said Ebling, was key, and even early in the transition, the company saw productivity improvements, with more expected. “Once integration with Vista is completely implemented, the transition from our estimating software to our accounting software will be rather seamless,” he said. “Previously, we had to do the entire estimate, then re-enter the same budget information into the accounting software. Obviously, errors can occur anytime you have to do double-entry.” That meant, says Ebling, additional scrutiny—and considerably more time to ensure that the numbers they used were accurate and consistent throughout the project lifecycle. After moving to ProEst, CCI estimators no longer needed to double-check their math to confirm that data is correct.

New Levels Of Collaboration And Reliability:
Ebling also finds that ProEst has given the CCI team a new ability to work remotely—and simultaneously—on the same estimates, enabling the kind of collaboration that an in-house server-based solution couldn’t provide. With 20+ registered ProEst users and multiple office locations, that’s a meaningful benefit for CCI, especially as project proposals multiply and the demand for estimates grows. Ebling also appreciates the speed and ease with which any technical issues are recognized and resolved, and how responsive the Prost team is to CCI user needs. He notes that any questions or support requests submitted through the ProEst in-system notification form elicits a response within a couple of hours, eliminating delays and user down time.

"With ProEst, our people can work on the same estimate anywhere, at any time. That’s extremely useful."

Keeping Pace With Demand For Volume And Growth:
As a company focused on the future, CCI found that ProEst is a good fit for their commitment to continued expansion and growth. Since implementing ProEst, says Ebling, CCI has significantly increased their estimate output—up from 200 in all of 2019 to fifty in the first two months of 2020 alone. For CCI estimators, that bodes well for their ability to keep pace with increased demand for proposals—and helps prove the value of ProEst as an effective productivity tool. When asked if ProEst is the right partner for their efforts to scale as a construction company, Ebling didn’t hesitate to answer in the affirmative. “Yes,” he said. With growth and profitability as the goal, CCI and ProEst are in it together.

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