How Everyone Across Your Firm Can Benefit from AEC Technology (Not Just Accounting!)

Architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms fight battles on multiple fronts. Accounting must keep cash flowing, and seller/doers must find and win new business. Though most AEC technology solutions are more than capable of supporting those needs, there are some key areas of the organization that are typically forgotten—like project management, HR, and IT.

How did this happen? Perhaps it’s simply a matter of the most visible areas of the firm getting the most attention.

Nonetheless, all these areas play a critical role. Considering that the key to the success of any organization is to be connected, it only makes sense that everyone should be utilizing the same technology. Without technology connectivity, your firm will never be truly connected.

Lacking connectivity can create problems. You could be overlooking new business opportunities, losing money on projects or the wrong technology, interrupting cash flow with less than efficient accounting processes, or even losing business and employees due to project staffing mistakes.

These are all potentially serious problems that can be addressed with aec360 by HSO because aec360 deals with every facet of your AEC firm—not just Accounting. To show that we mean what we say, we’re hosting a five-part webinar series, which each 30-minute session focusing on one specific role or department, explaining how aec360 and the Microsoft cloud can make a substantial difference in the way your people do their jobs and the results your firm gets from their efforts.

Session 1: Empowering Seller/Doers to Find and Win More Business

Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Register here.

Seller/doers are charged with the never-ending job of bringing in revenue. The key is a strong pipeline, which is not always easy in such a competitive industry. Seller/doers have to uncover new opportunities with existing clients in addition to obtain and connect with prospective clients. Both necessitate a clear view of relationships, both internal and external. In this session, I’ll review proven strategies for increasing win rates and developing a healthy pipeline, including how to:

• Put your firm’s existing relationships to work to discover new opportunities and increase win rates.
• Leverage your firm’s knowledge and qualifications to create winning proposals
• Use pursuit intelligence and go/no-go decision support tools to reach effective pursuit decisions and improve your bid-to-win ratio
• Achieve and maintain a 360-degree view of your clients, relationships, pursuits, experience, and growth initiatives to discover and win more work

Session 2: Empowering Project Managers to Deliver Profitable Projects

Wednesday, July 13, 2022, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Register here.

AEC project management teams have their hands in every revenue-producing engagement in the organization. They are charged with balancing project profitability with on-time and on-budget delivery. Due to many impactful factors, you may start seeing a negative impact on the bottom line—and, before you know it, on your firm’s reputation. The key is connectivity to help you build and deliver superior projects while keeping budgets under control. In this session, I’ll discuss proven strategies using AEC technology for managing the entire project lifecycle for on-time and on-budget, first-rate project delivery, including how to:

• Create more accurate project estimates and budgets by building the project plan prior to delivering the bid
• Drive on-time delivery with effectively planning and managing of resources
• Place project and budget control back in the hands of your project managers
• Leverage real-time insights to drive better utilization and project margins
• Promote collaboration across project teams to work smarter

Session 3: Empowering Accounting Teams to Accelerate Your Firm’s Cash Flow

Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Register here.

Accounting teams are arguably the primary support of any company—but most especially with AEC firms since they control cash flow. Therefore, they must watch for areas where cash flow can be impeded; from inefficient processes to lack of visibility, there are so many ways to hurt cash flow. In this session, I’ll review strategies for optimizing your most valuable resource other than your employees—your cash—using AEC technology by showing you how to:

• Make time and expense capture and approval processes more efficient
• Improve timesheet accuracy and easily locate missing timesheets
• Automate the review and approval process of client invoices to ensure accuracy prior to delivery
• Enable project managers and other key employees to assist in the collection of open invoices

Session 4: Empowering HR Teams to Find and Retain the Right Talent

Wednesday, September 14, 2022, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Register here.

AEC firms rely on smart, capable people. Maintaining good talent was already challenging, and then the great resignation made it that much more difficult. Firms are competing for the cream of the crop, so you need to be especially good at managing your employees, skills, qualifications, and performance goals. In this session, I’ll demonstrate how connectivity enabled by AEC technology can strengthen your talent strategy by:

• Create a centralized, self-service enabled storehouse of your employees and their proficiencies and qualifications
• Ensure key employee data flows seamlessly across all sections of your business, to include marketing and project management
• Accurately track experience and qualifications to create strong resumes and place the right people on the right projects
• Hone your performance management practices to develop and grow your employees’ skills, experience, and training to keep them engaged and content

Session 5: Empowering IT Teams to Drive Efficiencies, Automation, and Insights

Wednesday, October 12, 2022, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Register here.

AI, RPA, low-code/no-code…Where do you begin? IT in today’s AEC firms is presented with big challenges. Cloud transformation is happening rapidly, the industry is adopting emerging technologies, and employees are insisting on more sophisticated tools to help them more effectively do their job.

It is all on you to not only figure out what AEC technology your firm should be adopting and how—but also how to do it on a budget. In this session, I’ll share how you can drive better efficiencies, automation, and insights across your firm, including:

• Integrating systems and processes to lessen manual and redundant tasks while increasing efficiencies
• Updating legacy applications, digitize manual processes, and drive automation with the Microsoft Power Platform
• Utilizing RPA technology to automate recurring processes and focus on activities that add value
• Driving real-time visibility across the firm by leveraging Microsoft’s industry leading data and analytics solutions like Power BI
• Streamlining your IT footprint and lower your total cost of IT ownership (TCO)

Discover the Benefits of a Connected Firm with AEC Technology Everyone Can Use

For an AEC firm to be successful and competitive, it must be connected—and the only way to attain it is by getting everyone in sync on the AEC technology they use.
You can register for one or all of these sessions to see how aec360 can help your firm get connected.

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