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Zoho for Industry // Construction //
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Choose Zoho for Your Construction Business

Use Zoho for better sales, organisation and planning processes.

My name is Doug and I am a Project Manager of a construction company. We wanted to bring our business into the 21st century and utilize the power of technology and the cloud, using Zoho business software, to better manage our construction projects using online business apps.

We used to try and manage our projects by using Excel files initiallybut this became problematic very quickly as there were so many versions flying around and we could not have a centralised source of information. We also used Microsoft Project, but licensed costs were too high and this prohibited desk from expanding. 

In the end we decided to use Zoho business apps because they offer very flexible licence options which means we can add and then remove users as we go and our monthly license rate is just adjusted automatically. Zoho also have over 45 different business apps and many of them are integrated, so this means we can use applications that suit our needs for multiple departments. For example:

Zoho Workplace
Zoho CRM
Zoho Projects
Zoho Desk
Zoho Lens


Zoho Workplace

A centralised communications hub for the whole office - email, calendar, tasks, internal chat/video calls, online customer meetings, centralised document storage.

Zoho CRM

A robust 'Customer Relationship Management' solution, that can be used by our sales and marketing teams to generate the business that I need for the construction projects. Those guys have told me they love Zoho CRM as it allows them to create marketing campaigns, both online and offline, for example email Marketing or tele sales or Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns with Google, even offline printed newsletters and brochures as well as in person events like trade shows and seminars. Our campaigns and events are managed by the marketing team who then use the CRM to collect leads which are then followed up by our sales team using a number of different communications channels such as email and phone and in-person or online meetings. The end result is hopefully closed sale that then get passed to me and my team to carry out full-on construction projects until completion. Management love the CRM too because it gives them a window into the business and they can generate really cool and meaningful dashboards and reports with interactive charts giving them the information they need, in order to manage the business.

Zoho Projects

This is what I use with my team. Zoho Projects is an online project management application that can be used for any kind of project, in our case construction projects. We need to be able to track the milestones and tasks and in some cases subtasks for every single construction project we do. This includes the signing of tasks to different members of the project team along with due date and estimated number of days or timeframe to complete the task as well as estimated effort. The team members are responsible for updating their own tasks and can add comments on the task, notifying various project team members, for example if they need advice on a specific task or feedback on a completed task. Everything gets tracked in one place. There's also an issues module which allows us to track any 'snagging' issues - QA defects or broken products, lack of materials etc., again we can log all of this in the same project so that everything is centralised and we do not lose information. One of the best aspects of Zoho Projects is that it integrates seamlessly to Zoho Workdrive which is the online document storage platform that the whole business uses as part of Zoho Workplace. This means we can access documents that other teams are also using  but do so from within Zoho Projects - for example, architectural plans or technical specifications.  On the other hand we can also upload images of completed work or of defects into a Zoho Workdrive folder directly from the project portal so that architects and designers or support staff can see these files from the office and deal with it from their side. 

Keep track of all of your business's tasks with Zoho Projects.

Zoho Desk

We use the hot desk for a robust customer support platform because it is a purpose built help desk ticketing system which allows customers to log in and see their own support tickets as well as access numerous knowledge base articles that our team maintain. This allows us to offer support packages to customers whose completed construction project has been released and this keeps customers happy as we can support them over an agree period after their project is complete. Customers are able to submit tickets either directly from our online help desk which uses an easy to remember URL similar to our website, or they can do so by sending an email to a dedicated support email address. The best thing about it is our support agents are able to search on any of the modules in Zoho Desk and therefore access previous solutions or knowledge base articles very quickly which they can then communicate to the customer.
Zoho Desk can help make things easier for both you and your customers.

Zoho Lens

We've been using this for a short time but it's proving to be a great little app that is an add-on for Zoho Desk. Zoho Lens is an augmented reality app that an agent can activate whilst dealing with a support ticket that allows the customer to utilize the phone camera on their mobile phone to show the support agent a particular problem they may be experiencing with an aspect of their completed construction project. For example, this may be something as simple as incorrect colouring on the taps or a scratched door on a cupboard; or it might be something more serious like a leaking water pipe or damaged electrical outlet. The customer can activate the camera and show the support agent the problem in real time whilst they are using their phone camera to look at the issue at their construction site. We have also started using it internally as well so that project team members who are working on a construction project at that time can use their mobile phones to show project managers an issue or progress in real time if both parties cannot be outside together.

In conclusion for me as a project manager, these applications are proving to be real productivity boosters as they are easy to use. My team can learn the functions in very little time, including guys who might not have been trained in it and business applications previously. Most of the apps are available on mobile devices and of course everyone has one of these and therefore can use the business software very easily.