Thought Leaders Series: Using technology and data to increase efficiencies

good afternoon on behalf of Engineers Australia I'm delighted to welcome you all to our thought leader series using technology and data to increase efficiencies my name is Megan Petty and I'll be your host for today firstly in keeping with our custom engineer's destroy acknowledges the traditional custodians of the country throughout Australia and recognizes A continuing connection to land Waters and community we pay our respects to them and their cultures and to Elders past present and emerging before we get started I would like to acknowledge that today's webinar has been hosted with Engineers Australia's industry partner total synergy founded in 1999 total Synergy is a global leader in business management software and solutions for architecture engineering and construction design businesses with more than fourteen thousand users and 700 businesses in 13 countries relying on total Synergy for intelligent business and project management software and Superior Services total Synergy helps businesses to effectively manage operations to increase profitability and create more time for design now today we will hear from two speakers followed by our live audience q a and I encourage you all to send your questions through to our Speakers by the chat box I'd now like to welcome our first Speaker Mike Cardinal Mark is an accomplished sales and success leader was with a strong track record of driving change through technology adoption in global markets but the focus on software as a service solution mine could specialize in productivity and analytics tools for Niche markets and inhuma reputation as a thought leader in the field originally from Australia Mike spent the majority of his career in the United States with venture-backed high growth companies that provide platforms for software development sales financial and other service businesses ranging from smbs to Enterprise Mateo is a structural chartered professional engineer with more than a decade of design experience in the Australian construction industry a 40 under 40 award recipient and a fellow of Engineers Australia is driven by creativity curiosity and communication in the pursuit of engineering access excellence material launched Hera in 2014 determined to create a new engineering consultancy approach that focused on cutting-edge and sustainable design Solutions over the prioritization of profit and has earned a solid reputation for delivering exceptional work on a wide range of projects generating significant Savings in Project cost and times please join me in welcoming Mike Cardinal thanks very much Megan for the introduction and we're going to be talking today about using technology and data to increase efficiencies in your practices I'm Mike Cardinal head of global sales at total Synergy today I'm going to be discussing how practices can use technology and harness centralized data to drive business performance a little bit about me I've spent my career dedicated to go to market and success functions in the software industry based in the United States up until 2019 now residing in Melbourne Australia I lead total Synergy sales teams in the UK and here in Australia and New Zealand total Synergy has been assisting built environment businesses run their practices since 1999 we build Niche industry specific project and business management software to help Professionals in the space run project-based businesses successfully we have a core SAS cloud-based product called Synergy with add-ons to assist with other components of the business such as business analytics HR CRM and document management the product is built to be able to connect to other cloud-based systems seamlessly via our open API to enable the reduction of data silos for that centralized data effect a recent McKinsey report on accelerating growth in the construction industry using technology highlights the opportunity that we have and the direction the industry is heading in there's a big push towards harnessing data and ensuring that data flows between the tech that you are using and so I wanted to jump into some Trends accelerating growth uh and I am joined today by Mateo tirapel and I might throw to him after I've gone through these and get his thoughts as well and he'll speak to you a bit more later in this presentation as well but digitization of the aec industry started Gathering steam a decade ago that pace has accelerated over the past three years and a number of Trends suggest it will continue to do so amongst these the principal drivers are economic factors and regulation which are prompting investment there's also really high optimism amongst investors texian is also maturing along with aec technology and property technology uh seeing a convergence and the main one which relates to our topic today companies are still seeking interoperability either through virtual platforms built using Open Standards and workflows such as open Bim or with One-Stop shop platforms Mateo did you have any additional thoughts on this yeah look I think I think you're right the last 10 years has been been a game changer for uh for consultancy uh industry in general the digitalization is becoming um making or break it like when I was start as an engineer there was very little digital tools everything was fairly manual and since I've started a business eight years ago I've seen that the digital tool are it's very daunting at the start because people are just not used to it because it's like emails I guess 20 years ago you know get into that new reality must have been very difficult for people that wasn't used to it but unfortunately it's like every every new technology you have to really invest the time to to understand it how it's gonna how it's gonna help you because the technology out there is always out there to help you out but it is it is definitely difficult for uh for senior people to to understand it and see the value of it I think that is is the key to be able to see the value and be enough agile to to wants to do it and that yeah great thanks for those insights Mateo um yeah I think what I hear is that it's really worth the leap and and sort of making that jump even though it can can be quite um intimidating for a business uh but it's definitely worth exploring and and um going through that that change management process um which I'll touch on a bit as well you've built your practice on a foundation of doing things a certain way that is now tried and tested and so as I just mentioned and Mateo gave us some insights into it's really daunting to think about changing how you do things so you might put this off you also want to ensure that any technology you've invested in is working for you and not the other way around the easiest way to reduce any fear or trepidation around taking the step to digitize or transform your practice is to intrinsically know what's important to you and how you run your practice now a procedure can change and will change as you create efficiencies this should create relief in your business not fear it's the outcome that is important and if you know exactly what you need to run your business well you can effectively assess technology that can give you that and avoid implementing something that doesn't work and I think something to really call out in this is ensuring that you have a partner um that is able to innovate for you um you know that might not be something that you want to build in-house um you know technological innovation but that's why you look for a partner that can help you with that and free you up uh in the practice to do the things that uh that drive the success of the business and I think Mike if I can add something to that yes please it's um I think what what is key to this is having having an external partner like software developers that you can do that for those who within your business you need to have people that want to embrace that challenge with you because I you know headers 30 people and for me to convince people within the business to get more into the digital world that is a challenge because the people are swamped with a day-to-day project delivered and most of the time they see this as getting their way and and be more time than less time so it's very important to get your team on the journey and just get them to buy in and understand the value of the digital tools that are available this day and I think that is it's really the biggest challenge that that I'm personally facing to get everybody on board and um so you have to really you have to be very you know understandable of how to implement this to not overwhelm people and the way we do it is implementing one step at a time things and try to get people to see the value of it but it's really challenging because unfortunately yeah my practice is not it's not huge to the people as I said imagine practice 200 people have to change that mentality something like that is the biggest the biggest challenge on on this digital future yeah right and that's so important and it sounds like you're saying that most teams have this potential for Change and and most teams can can be convinced to come on the journey um but it takes a lot of care and attention and and thinking is that what I'm hearing from you Yeah Yeah so basically people have to buy in because if they don't buy in they're not gonna do it and and the software can be the best software level and but it's really up to the leaders to really be able to sell it in a way that people will eventually see they're actually saving time and look I'm the first one that I didn't see that so you have to be really really have a culture of innovation within the business which is um I think it's very exciting to have that and I think it's really as a personal growing and as a business grow it's a fantastic opportunity for people but yeah you have to be mindful that you can't just come to work and say okay guys this is this is how we do it now because you know that it's gonna be good but they don't and getting better on that technical Journey it's uh is what is challenges leaders I think but it's also you know a good a good a good challenge to have to be able to get your team on this new Journey because once they're gonna even rise on it it's going to become routine for them and for us you know there are new technology we use in through Synergy that has became routine and now we're asking ourselves how did we used to do without this but you know you need to get people to buy into it yeah great and and I've heard you you know mentioned previously just the sort of excitement once you get to that point and you realize the opportunity in the business um once you've started to make some of those changes and uh it's really exciting um when you see a business um start to make that realization that you've just spoken about I think um something that I would highlight here as well is that a lot of Professional Services firms will break their business into um two sides or camps however you want to look at it your fee earning uh and your feed burning and to be successful I think we need to break that barrier down or at least understand the relationship between the two sides maybe instead of calling them fee earning um instead of calling them up yeah fee earning and feed burning we call them fearning and fee nurturing um just to kind of give a bit more of a sort of future looking um uh sort of Spin and focus to it um I think there's a heavy focus and a huge amount of advancements in the technology for delivering the technical side of things um you know computational design uh just to name one on the non-technical side there are many applications and Tech options to help do these jobs the key is understanding what helps you most in your business and how these fit together to give you an efficient workflow and it's important to avoid um a lopsided business where your technical processes are supercharged but your business processes are left behind and I think again you've just sort of touched on that um already Mateo um but you know that type of scenario will hamstring the whole business right so like you said the the tech alone just won't solve it um there's a real human component uh to this as well along with the Best in Class Tech of course um Mateo any other thoughts um on that from your vast amount of experiences I think I think you call it yeah I think it's uh you know you have to you have to really um I think you know the digital tool needs to be used to really understand well what we call here the wise Factory waste Factory is it's where the business is it's not successful you know which could be could be like you know one particular process is taking too long because there's not enough mapping of it so and that that waste Factory it it's really important to to really improve your business be more profitable and but also for me I don't I don't look at being from a profit point of view from me I've learned over the years to look things through a cultural point of view because if your culture is good and it's a good culture you know the business should be successful as well obviously to me good culture is not uh it's not going to the pub on on a one o'clock and spend all afternoon in the park the good culture is to be able to do those sort of things but also ensuring that people goes home on time people are not stressed people are at the right allocation for their project etc etc if people are happy to work in the business they they're gonna thrive in the business that that most likely is gonna it's gonna create Revenue to the business and profit so I think I think the culture and you know these days everybody speaks about culture and and it's it's an important topic and I think people realize that it is more to work and you know in life but I think it's important to understand also that work is part of our life so we need to make sure that the work is enjoyable it's good it's a good workplace and for a business to be real it has to be profitable otherwise you can't pay salary so that is that is the the end goal but um the technology we've been using in the last two years especially we've been really using in our advantages to be able to measure the success of a project deliver and having these early tools allows you to recognize if there are any problems on jobs so you don't need to find those problems at the end of the project when you is too light and then you have no other choice than walking light and burn people out so I think that is that's what makes a successful engineering practice is is to see what's coming don't be reactive don't fire fight all the time you need to see what's coming and the only way to see what's coming is to have like digital tools that give you that those in early indications so you a senior team in management you can help your team in supporting them giving them more resources more training or whatever it has to be yeah yeah really well said and you know there's a lot in in what you just said now I think something that really stands out to me is kind of connecting back to to culture if you've got really good systems you've got um predictability in in your business that has to flow back through into um you know healthy mindsets and good cultures people feel like they're not just chasing you know what's in front of them um and and I can see that sort of Link there between you know great process um great software well implemented um well adopted um and then creating space for nice culture as well and a you know a healthy culture um yeah it's really absolutely appreciate those insights um thank you so if we do take a look at the core non-technical elements um you may have applications that help with these key areas um so you know in a lot of cases these will be separate applications even using different technology which means of course your data is in silos and this makes it hard to use the data in each to inform other areas of the business or report on elements collectively to give you a big picture and so what we really want to achieve in order to run this side of the business efficiently and reduce admin um obviously bringing up more time for billable tasks and a lot of space for the things we just spoke about but what you really need uh is to break down the silos and use technology to bring that data together for powerful reporting and information for decision making so let's take a look at a typical flow of data in your practice let's say you have a new contact an opportunity come in you add data while you manage that relationship you then develop a proposal to do the work you then win the work the team then starts planning to do the job of course you want to build up the best team to deliver it and the work will get broken up and divided amongst that team and the team will start recording what they're doing on the project PM's uh and accounts will be managing transactions and whip and you'll start to see invoicing and you'll want to or you'll you'll want to start invoicing and you'll also want to assess the project the progress of the project Mateo did you want to add anything as you look at this no I think I think Mike that is that is the the classic workflow that every you know Consultants business has so I think I think that is um that is the is important to understand and I think the whip it's an important concept that I think a lot of people might not manage properly and I think that this Synergy it's good to manage that for us it's been it's been a great help to understand the weapon and how and how we run projects yeah great and just to cut kind of round that out um you know we see sort of the the end of that uh that workflow and we start to get to the you know the data um kind of piece with um that data being collated at multiple steps during the project um you'll be collaborating with the team you have external stakeholders you're documenting the collaboration um and then accounts is able to reconcile payments and you see the the finished work and you can see that in your custom reports how you performed on the project uh and as a team and as a business um and then turn around you can use that data to manage the business as a whole as well so if we just take a look here at the idea of good data and just how important that data flow is we look at these examples here we can call out some clear benefits of having good data flow between functional areas of the business and the technology used in them so if we consider CRM and project management system you start to easily report on when lost best worst customers and even sectors uh HR to project management system easily resource staff on projects by availability skills and qualifications project accounting monitor real-time web and I know Mateo we've spoken in the past about just how important that is and you know how enabling and exciting for a business once you start to get whip right and and truly do um your whip process within the business with the right tools and of course that leads to invoicing customers efficiently and to getting paid um if we look at email to project management and Pim system you find all your project information in one central location anywhere on any device project accounting uh to business accounting your general ledger avoid double entry and have all up-to-date project related financial information in your accounting system absolutely crucial part of running a successful business and then if we sort of bring you know a host of these together really everything I've spoken about here CRM HR project management project accounting business accounting um connected to a bi tool Right Live graphical kpi dashboards enabling proactive business decisions and management you've got good processes in place amongst your teams freeing up leadership owners to make decisions about the business and its direction so I did add this quote here from uh Cameron Jackson uh from Walbridge Gilbert Aztec and um you know he's really talking about creating wins by connecting various systems uh and data sources that not only means less manual and repetitive data entry but most importantly to access that intelligence to get that predictive capability in the business to make more informed decisions and I think that just really encapsulates um you know that idea here from uh from Cameron and so looking at the ecosystem of connected products um and I'm here talking about total Synergy and how you can centralize your data and simplify your workflows um you know I think connecting leading industry specific applications has huge benefits including saving time and eliminating Double Entry streamlining your management processes and getting a clearer broader real-time view of what's really happening in your business and projects I'll leave you on this slide just for a second it does give a snapshot of The Suite of applications an architectural or engineering practice can utilize and connect to to create this flow of information through systems that work for you and give you back more time for design in your business and at this point I wanted to introduce Mateo to repel he's our guest speaker today and he is from Hera engineering and he is a structural chartered professional engineer with more than a decade of design experience in the Australian construction industry he's won 40 under 40 Awards and is a fellow of the engineers Australia as well as being driven by creativity curiosity and communication in the pursuit of engineering Excellence I might throw to Mateo at this point to tell us a little bit about your experience in using technology and data within your business yeah thank you Mike for for the introduction and the slide that that you put before before so just I guess a bit of an introduction for me um I I started era engineering eight and a half years ago and I came from that experience in a big Corporation Australia and then when I started the business I guess I started from from from zero so you had no no process in place and I guess I'm a fairly organized person but um when you when you're running a business unfortunately you have so much time during the day to do things so and the client is always the most important thing because this is as the guy that paid the bills and you want to try to repeated work from your clients so project always go always goes first and deliver as well a project while delivered it's key so for me as a business when I started you know it was fresh everywhere and foreign the quickest way I guess to get to get some process going but I I started to go into total Synergy fairly early in in the process the Visa probably only one year into the business I was talking to another consultant that we were sharing office with and they had Synergy and change it was not Cloud at the time and we you know it straight away early in in the back of the business I realized that I need a tool to for invoicing and and where you can book projects sizes variation Etc so I think I think as a minimum as an as a consultant species you have to have like applies a centralized place where where you have like all your project information and back in the day Synergy was uh it was server based it was not cloud-based because in 2015 when I started there was already Cloud product because we were using zero it was a cloud problem with no many with a lot of things to still serve about it so um but that digital transformation was already happening and Synergy had very similar function of what he has these devops these days it's a different product but and then but I guess for me the experience was that once you started doing in when you have a good enough tool like Synergy version at the time to do just enough to get to keep you ahead of our water I think that that's where people stop and they say okay I'm I'm good with these I probably don't need anything more and I don't have time to do anything more and I'm sure that this is the case for uh for a lot of people that are listening to this webinar and it's just that feeling that you have that you know you you just don't have time and invest in a Time on doing this it's going to be too time consuming I don't have it a good project to do and everything is too hard I think that is the is the mentality that unfortunately given the the way the industry is and how Russia how reactive the industry and how manual the industries the Phoenix that's at least is my experience on on technology so I guess for me the biggest lesson learned you know over the year is um to be able to be able to make time you need you need to use time so and uh I guess the business has matured enough now to to a level where I I can probably do more streamlining the business than what I was I was able to do five six years ago or five years ago and uh and I guess the reason is going back to what I said before is is you need to understand that you need to have a good culture like a right culture where you have like people that are not just coming to work to earn a salary but it's people that wants to share that Journey with you the Journey of innovation that people that are are excited about learning new things and challenge themselves and try to get those people that are not really just want to come to work just to end study but they want to accelerate a good salary but they also want to be able to to be Innovative in what they do and and also you need to surround yourself with people that wants to take ownership so that is the culture that we have a hair and and unless you have that culture you can't really progress in a digital world and I think the important thing as well is you need to have a culture where you know in my case the pieces don't want to let things go because I think I mean that that is the other the other problem with a lot of people that because you're so focused on on keeping the calculus of your chest or or I guess you know sticking to be the only point of contact with clients and stuff like that that you always end up doing what you shouldn't be doing really so we have you know having a culture of trust a culture of empowerment it's key to be able for for leaders to delegate down stuff that you know probably you shouldn't be doing and but the delegation process it's it's not a simple one and you need to add Tools digital tools that allow you to keep an eye on things because and it's not necessarily because people might be want to do the wrong thing but just because people maybe they don't have the experience or they might make some bad decisions so if you have the right tools the right indicator in place you can step in as required to to manage your your team so my experience is that in in the consultancy industry a lot of the a lot of our rework or doing things twice Etc they can be led by external Factor like a builder change in their mind the architect changing their mind and then we have we have to redocument process as we go so for and sometimes sometimes you don't realize this because the people working on the job they might think is normal they might not telling you what whatever reason there is the timesheet are not not something that people love to do it and timesheet is is another those thing that people see as getting the way of the of the day-to-day so another another distraction so but with the timesheet we have we have we explained to people why we do timesheet why it's important to track your time correctly why it's important to record them don't do random timesheet but just try to be accurate on it because the digital tool we're using is to see on based on those timesheet how much how much budget we spend on the job which can be tracked through Synergy how was the percentage of fee that we have spent with what we have invoice Etc and and those things are not aim to point finger to stuff and going to stuff and say oh you spend too many hours on the job that things is for us a manager to say look the job that we're spending a little bit too much time on the job but we know that early we don't know when the fee has run out and we are in panic mode to say wow we spent all the fee now you know you have no hour left to finish the job that that's bad card so that toxic culture to me that is when you manager is not involved and you left on your own to solve something that that potentially it's uh it's a learning experience for use for us as manager we want to be able to know this thing early when for example it could be like you spend 20 percent of your fee and and you only done 10 of the work that's good to know that early because you still got 80 percent of your fee dispense you can do something about it and then do something about it could be extra training it could be look this is more complicated than I thought I need some help so okay we're going to give you a senior engineer to help you out it can be whatever you want but for me to run a business effectively you need to have choices of how you spend the time and in my experience even recent experience we find why to light that we have benefit on the job and then it became a very stressful exercise for for everybody so a whip it's a it's a very important it's a very important indicator where to be honest I never really pay too much attention to the whip in the past and then I started to really understand what they are and how Synergy track it and and I think that is however you tracking your whip that that is a great indicator of what's going on on a project and so I think that is uh that is a very a very important process that businesses need to need to understand really what what is going wrong on project and and be able to to improve from that and try to find a better way to do it but that can be done through spreadsheet in my opinion that has to be done we had a digital world you have to go through digital software whatever you choose to to have is to be something that works and and I don't think one software could do it at all I think I think there are um you need to be able to to use the software or what it does the best and then with the API these guys you can really integrate one software with another and and be able to connect multiple things again this stuff takes times it takes energy it takes find the right Partners out there and it's not as simple it's not a simple things but it's about try to automate the process as much as you can also because I think having these digital tools to try to to help you managing projects it's very important because I think we need to recognize that there is a skill shortage in the industry and and also a lot of people in the industry that that are available they might not be best suited for the job they might be good you know we have received a lot of CPU fantastic ad and maybe from the from the infrastructure industry but it they're not going to be they're not going to be necessarily experienced on the building industry so it depends which sector you're in but most of the time we find that the candidate for a job the you know it's very narrow how many you you can find so and because of the of the skill strategy you might have to employ someone with not enough experience and putting them in in a senior role so having those those delegation and those tools that help in you you know monitoring the work I think it's um it's key to to be able to don't run a gamble on the business and and I think for me personally the other thing that that is really uh I've been focusing a lot is again going back to culture cultural is it is for the Starbucks for me as well and and as business owner you can be trapped into into working long hours and I definitely was in a spin at the start of the business because starting a business and and I guess achieving what we have achieved it's uh it's not that simple so you really have to be talented and motivated but I always wanted to have my weekend free and then don't want to work a weekend and try to not work past six o'clock in the evening and so for me for me the 40 hours a week it's it's definitely a goal or even less than 40 hours you know if I and that is to be honest it is my long my medium to shorten go to work less than that by having the right people in the business and the right um digital tool to help me do that and I believe that it's possible it's definitely for me a goal is to go walking three days a week by and and be more productive than what I have and the way I will do that is to be able to streamline my business Automation and checkpoints Etc so and part of that as I said before is the delegation process and creating process and Synergy for me has been has been pretty good lightly especially that that I I had I guess exploring more and more the stuff to be able to create this process and of of Delegation and but when you delegate you need to create a process that is easy to follow Fitness is the biggest challenge and and the process needs to be black and white it can be great so and that would have been really focusing on on creating that delegation process and and using Synergy reporting to be able to be very specific with whoever on my team has the task delegated you see so I create customer report and then those reports it's it's for them in its direction that you need to manage that report and that became very easy because there are there are process in the business I used to do myself it takes me so many hours and then I look at myself I say why am I doing this I can I can definitely automate this I can make it someone has problem than mine but it needs to be that someone I used to think that why I do so it's about having that that report and making things very clear because otherwise there's way too many people are seeing they delegate in in the completely correct way without the right brief and and and not understanding why that stuff is important and how it needs to be done and what is the end result that needs to be achieved so I think I let us leaders is it's really this what we need to delegate down how to communicate but you can do that with spreadsheets and Word document and all this is in the server or this is in SharePoint just for the person that is going to be doing it's going to become a mess and you are setting him to failure I believe so setting to success delegation process based on a digital process based on a clear reporting outcome that I can get from Synergy I think that is the success of a practice and but to do that you need to you need to be able to have the time to do that the vision and the capability and I think for me the Synergy help has been it's been a phenomenon help and only to they've been really really good on assisting me with you know with you know quests that I have and which has been I guess success for me to be able to implement digital tool so it's a team it's a team effort you need to find the right partner you need to the right motivation you need to write the right Vision you need to understand clearly when you get an impact but delegating down and then managing that process I think that is for me it's been like a tremendous help on freeing up my time getting more engagement from the staff they work more effectively they know exactly what needs to be done why needs to be done and I can see people in my business really really stepping up and giving that level of transparency to them has really made them more success in what they do and we have a very high staff rotation and I think it's because people when they come here they see the opportunity they see they can learn they see they are really growing and they're getting given responsibility very quickly but when we give you the responsibility once again that is track through like a a digital tool that allows us to make sure that you know you know derailing because yes you're learning by failure it's true what else you don't wanna you know will we work in a very dangerous industry because as a structure engineer you know you see what happened on some building of a wrist if there is a failure it's catastrophic so we need to remember that we need to be able to have that level of key or accuracy which for us is Paramount that allow our staff to to grow to learn and those failures are captured by iqc to our reporting so they also have a great experience because work-life balance to me it's yes it's working 40 hours all of that but it's going home with the peace of mind don't have to be a nighttime sleepy at your project it's not going well or you don't have enough support Etc and as manager we probably have like I don't know 50 60 project going on at the same time so how do you yes the QA is there and or or the layers is there people but having those indicators in the business it's really important to flag it and because we do weekly review you can see this pretty much live so I guess I guess it's a bit of a summary of my experience and lots of information but I think the message is really one you know to make time you have to spend time a new television to to understand that that is the way the future is going whether you like it or not so you know going into this digital world it's a it's a master and spreadsheet in my opinion to run business Etc they should be all superseded because you have way better tools this guidance pressure yeah I love how you're articulating this Mateo uh and you know how you really kind of touched on all of the friction points and um and just how you've been able to take your business through that um you know by connecting all these pieces I particularly love you keep returning to culture um and you know and an employee well-being I think is essentially what you're saying as well and how that's you know intimately connected to the technology the delegation um you know leadership um it's just really so valuable to hear this um you know from your Frontline experience and and how you've had the courage because that's the other thing I hear here is it's it's kind of you know the best time to plant the tree it was six months ago to use that um much used analogy but you know I think it's Just Having the courage to know like Now's the Time right like to to make that jump and and make those changes yes absolutely and uh it's um the other the other thing that is important I think is you need to connect yourself with the with people that knows more than you on this stuff here because you know I am I am 42 so I'm not I'm not 20 so and and you know I grew up in a in in a no in an analog area you know sorry I grew up in an analog age and yes I had computer when I was a kid but it was very basic so this stuff it's uh it's probably not necessarily on on leaders DNA because I think I think leaders this day they're probably around my age you know some early some light but it's uh maybe it's not part of our of our how we grow up so for me I think I think I'm a humble person from a knowledge point of view and I always love to to hear from people that that does things better than I do and especially in the last in the last few you know six months to an year I've been been talking to a friend of mine and he said he's really really into this this connectivity between software and different uh different platform Etc and I've been hearing how he run his business and to me that it was a great source of inspiration to say wow that that's really exciting to do that and but again it's you need to find a time to connect with these people to do your research and to be honest until like two years ago I didn't have the time to do that because it it's just too busy doing project and and Etc but you know two years ago two three years ago we decided to really break that cycle and and get into the future but it takes time takes time at foreign and you need to find the right Partners to do that and the right people that have has embraced a journey and they have a positive mentality as well because you know I'm I'm surrounded by you know not surrounded by you know in in the industry there are a lot of negative people so you have to really I'm really positive and for me negativity it's noise pollutions you really need to to filtering what you you know how you spending your time and and and having that mentality of try to really try time and I don't know I mean I probably can never get sick enough to say that you know but yeah once again having those having the source outside that inspiring you I think that's the world I'm looking for inspire you to to make the change and see the value of it and then as I said before our challenge it is to go to your team get them to see the value and they some of you they might be in a negative headspace because it's been smashed by a project so he you know the last thing you want to hear is this new process we're doing it no he doesn't he doesn't want to hear that so you have to really really you know walk with your team and by other leader you need to be inspired by by those change and you need to make the time to to look for it because there's so many Innovation and and some of them are rubbish I think some of them are really valuable um so you have to really you have to Dedicated time to to streamline your business yeah and just really grateful um for you being a guest um and um you know really just again articulating this so well and I love the idea of it sounds like you did a lot of sort of speaking to others outside your business and presumably you know attendance at things like this is is part of that and I'm really glad that you're able to share um this with um with the audience um but I love that idea of yeah getting inspiration from from those around you um to to get that confidence and make that change yeah I think I think in the industry there's a lot of there's not enough sharing I guess you know of of opportunity for renovation because obviously that that is a point different than what makes business competitive but for me you know I I I'm really happy to share to share this I mean I think has been a fairly successful business and and uh and you know we we want to organically grow and and I think best advice I can give is to create that culture and that culture of of be transparent and be supported to your team but for real not be supporting as other he says that you know in my side they're supported but they're not because you you know for us we don't want you know we don't have people going going home like for us you know people are going home on time and if someone is it's it's yeah like we are the first to check why is he lied where the process fight and again going back to the wise Factory that is when as a leader we take you know on board opportunity for improvement and and and having digital process to to to monitor that thank you so much Mateo right now we're going to take some questions from the audience well thank you both it is um you are right there Mike it is now our audience's turn to get involved so please ask our speakers your questions um by the chat box and don't forget to let me know who your question is directed to I would like to say a big thank you for everyone who did submit questions while registering for this afternoon's webinar and what I might do is actually just start with a couple of those so the first question I have I might kick off with you Mike and this question a big thank you to Graeme Nicholson from Queensland his question is as wonderful as technology is sometimes it is implemented hastily and becomes more a hindrance to staff than beneficial reducing your efficiencies what will be the best approach to find the right technology for the task problem that will be adopted by your staff yeah a great great question um and you know as with with many of these questions that I think will come through that there's a lot uh in the answer um I mean the obvious answer is you know you do need a process you need to go through sort of um what you might think as the the sort of boring steps which are defining requirements objectives needs assessment um you know researching your options all the way through to um you know how are you going to do change management but I think there's some some really core things um and you know I say this coming from sort of the sales world as well but I think there's a lot of principles that that apply um from that world that would really be really really clear on what the current state is um you know and and that you know will mean Discovery uh with your teams from the front line all the way to the executive like really understand what are the true problems um and that in and of itself might involve some exercise is that you haven't done in the business before you know strategic off-sites um you know maybe there's some trust building that needs to happen right from the get-go to really understand the problem and from there and um you know Mateo spoke about this that that sort of leads to initial buy-in you know to getting some people in each team uh that's going to use the Tool uh to solve the known problem um you know a champion we would call them um and you know that really starts things off on the right track um you know and I think listen to to maybe the ideas of your staff you know I see new tools every day that I want to use for my teams um and in turn you know my my team's coming to me and so I think just have your lens uh you know wide open at the beginning and really make sure as you you move through the process um there's just tons of communication uh as you go through the process of selecting a vendor and and uh you know ultimately solving those problems in the business well thanks Mateo did you want to add to that that answer I think I think Mike covered pretty well but you know it's uh it's a very it can be a very difficult uh difficult task to select because there's so many options out there so you really have to I think you need to be very heavily involved yes you know empowering your stuff to make decisions for sure but everybody will have different opinions so I think you need to take really attractive approach and spend the time to do some research and watch YouTube videos on how things work and test it out yourself I'm currently testing out some software and yeah it takes time and and but you need help as well you need to get that champion that Mike was signed before uh it's key to help you know the day to day because otherwise you're just gonna end up not having the time to do it I think yeah there's a lot of research clear God in your mind what you want to do what this software will do and the other thing as well is you have to be open-minded the fact that uh you won't find software will do everything for you so every business is different and you need to find a series of Partners out there that will do different things to you for you excellent thank you um I'll jump to a question that we received from Philip Miller um from Victoria so thank you Philip and I did see that um it did come through as one of the live questions from Bill Chan so um big thank you to Bill it was around well Phillip's question was how do you see AI working with modern engineering do you see it merely optimizing our roles or possibly replacing them Mike you might want to kick off and then I'll throw to Mateo yeah yeah I'll definitely uh leave to Mateo to speak to um sort of engineering um specific aspects of this question but I love this question um it's obviously AI machine learning it's just such a Hot Topic right now um but I think there's some there's some really exciting things I understand some of the apprehension as well um but I think there's a couple of uh aspects to to the answer um I definitely see an optimization of of certain roles if I think um you know from the customer facing perspective uh in a service business um you know I think there's things that we do over and over again that don't need thought they don't need a lot of uh of rethinking but the reality is that um you know I think we task or we we burden Frontline teams with a lot of repetitive process um where they're sort of rethinking the wheel I think AI is perfect typically positioned uh if adopted in the right way with all the trust building testing and consideration just done in a really purposeful and and thoughtful way to remove that admin for example in a sales team or a service team where they're responding to the same um you know question over and over again I think there's a perfect opportunity for for AI so I think the key here is to go with the low risk things first um and and you know kind of just start shaving off aspects of a day maybe it's 10 uh you know of a an FTE or a team of ftes uh in terms of uh you know shaving off an administrative task um and you know just being sure that you're getting the same outcome right asking you know a customer or or you know looking at your data um making sure you're getting the same outcome and and I would also flip this one on its head just before I I throw to um Mateo again go back to that current state like what is it you really want to achieve with a given role a given team or your business as a whole and you can actually flip this question on its head and say like where is it reducing risk um where is it creating new roles um and I think just the final thing that I would add is you know I'm optimistic um you know I remember the last sort of phase of automation um was kind of the key word maybe 10 years ago in the U.S market and I remember you know certain teams or industries were being called out you know those those jobs are gone was the sort of Mantra um those teams ended up growing they ended up evolving um and I think the thing to the mindset to take to it is that if you are in an industry or a role which is going to be many that are going to be affected by AI um I think the the key is that if you're a subject matter expert um in in your given area you're going to be on the front line of how to use those tools best you're going to be on the front line of how those tools evolve and develop and learn um so I just I do have a more positive um spin to it and again I love the question but I'll throw to Mateo for the um the engineering insights yeah thank you Mike um I think I look yeah it's been uh it's been definitely uh really coming on the front line the last since Chachi PT brought into day to day and I've been using quite a bit and and I've been uh been reading quite a quite a big book lately about it and future VI and you know listening to podcasts and stuff so I think I think you know we don't know how it's gonna go but definitely a lot of the stuff that we do it's it's can be automated so much so I think I think from an engineering world it's definitely going to change the landscape pretty big and and I think people will have to I think in a way we have to become more specialized in what we do so you know teams have like people that does basic does maybe the those people that have less ambitious than others you know they're happy just to I guess you know keep doing the same thing over and over and I think those are the people that will have to really um ever think about what they want from their career because like designing concrete beam or even setting up a model I think very soon will be just an automatic task so engineering who would be really valuable is the people that will manage those process I think I think like and you don't need to look back too far like 20 20 10 10 20 years ago to design a concrete beam you know you have to do by hand and then rapt came through and then final element Etc so let's speed up the process enormously to design us live 20 years ago that was was weak worth of work now it's like very quickly so it's the same thing you have to became a bit more specialized and and you know managing those process I think having that 12 people will have to focus on becoming more more organized understanding the process understanding the risk Etc and because yeah is here to stay and to evolve in the marketplace so that that's one thing where people should really focus their career moving forward well thank you and Taylor I do have a Live question that's come through from Ali shadman so thank you ali um and they write my question is to Mateo what are the challenges in using software to manage projects and your business and what are you doing to tackle them well look uh [Applause] there's a lot of challenges because uh um managing projects these days I don't think he has ever been so difficult uh because there is so many stakeholders involved in the project there are you know you you might working on on different platform like airconx for example so you have information there information emails then you have to manage your team and then especially after calling during copy the project that became so so price sensitive is very difficult to get project across the line so you have to be extra you know extra um careful about your design to make sure it's as efficient as you can and and also the time pressure you have in Project it's a it's a it's hugees so it's very it's it's very difficult to manage process project effectively and these days so um the why the way we do it is uh it's a Once Again using using tools to to try to have an understanding of of what what needs to be done when in order to avoid rework and try to try to do things that affected at the start and and get the project to start quite in on the right foot and then and then managing managing very closely the project as we go through digital tools that we use and for us we have we have senior people that are involved throughout the project to make sure that I know involved necessary in the day-to-day but they involved in making sure to what is done is is actually uh gonna be um is moving the project forward and and we don't get stuck into into tasks that you know might not be ready to do or might not be um you know we might not have all the information because sometimes you know when you're delegating down the line to younger engineer they might just get they just might get an instruction from computer and argument and they just go down the rabbit hole so I think I think these days is you can pull in all different directions from project manager architect build that's a savvy and you have to really get that that process streamlined to make sure that that that that you try to really try that process forward and so so so so your team is it's good for the producing uh work that is actually uh you know it's uh it's relevant to the project rather than just finding yourself halfway through that giving a lot of hours on the job but you know those information were not we're not right so you have to do it okay so it's really stay involved on my on a high level and senior people to make sure that things are moving forward and we check intellectual digital tools and and I think that is where well again going back to the AI question this is once again the year I could in the future I think will manage those processes those those you know the beam design and construction engineer something from my field you know the column design whatever you whatever you're doing but make sure that you know all the dots are connected I think that is where the the role of the engineering would be more focused I think and this is this is we start to see that and lots of the stuff we're doing we have automated and now you know before going from one step to the other we make sure that that you know box updated but those kind of jump into one of the other questions that we received um was what are the ethics and legal implications on people relying on AI outcomes when there is no reference to sources to confirm its ability so just kind of keeping on that AI topic and I think that's Bill chant who I think is watching live that question one came through from so Mike or Matteo who wants to jump into that one yeah I can jump in um and yeah love to hear Mateo's thoughts on this question as well um look I think back to some of my earlier comments um I think it starts start small um right to make sure you're not extending into any ethical or legal uh areas that you where you don't know what you don't know or you know you're potentially at risk so again low low risk administrative tasks is just one example um you know to rely on an AI outcome um you know I've had it said to me um you know many times in in running teams within software yes what we do is important but you know it's we're not on the front line of you know saving lives at a hospital something like that there are many things that we can look at in our roles um um that you know sit outside you know um uh risk or or a very very low risk right and obviously Mateo can speak to to what that sort of looks like in the engineering World um and I think um you know no reference to sources um you know to to confirm you know the validity of AI yeah I mean I think there has to be that that human judgment in there early right it has to be there before you start scaling and uh allowing a process to go over to automation um you need to to verify and and and gain that confidence that you're getting the outcome you you want again I would flip this one on its head as well and say you know where is it actually better right where where is it um you know more valid and and and more consistent uh and a better experience like that has to be inherent I think in any technology we adopt and I believe that that is true in many many cases and and the reason why you know net uh The Net game is that right we we get a better experience uh but you just need to understand you know maybe where there's the risky parts yeah I agree with Mike I think I think you have to really you know right now there is no regulation on that and so I think you need to be really really aware uh like you know using charge GPD for example and you know half of the stuff when you ask a question you know give you the wrong answer so it is it's like everything you need to you need to test it to see start a small admin task as Mike said it it it's absolutely you know the way to go but I think I hope I mean it's a lot of talk about it this should be like an international regulation like an agency that's regular uh EI development for various Industries you know and and try to get some I'm hoping there's going to be some some like a common tool that will be developing engineering industry that will apply to different different you know different type of engineering and and those tools will be you know qaqc make sure that it can be used because you know if you go online at the moment there's so many AI developers out there that you get again you know you know all the work pretty quickly so which one are the good ones which one are not a good one so there's no I mean it's a bit of a jungle at the moment because it's been moving so quickly so I think I think you need to you know you definitely needs to keep keep looking keep watching have you Champion that update you on that but they must be done some some regulation I think it's in Australia as well you should probably think about you know what what could be some some rules apply to our industry um it's definitely is definitely a Hot Topic that is for sure at the moment um which kind of then leads into my next question um so how do we manage to keep up with rapid changes on the tech of the technology we are currently using at work I think you both have kind of discussed that during the presentations but it's been us so I'll raise that one if you guys want to just give us a you know just a few tips on how to to stay up to date yeah go ahead mate yeah go first yeah look I've been I've been the last you know last two three years I've been quite quite into this sort of stuff and uh and yeah it's amazing how how quickly this stuff is it's uh not only technology get get released the market and and so it's so quick as well to to Fair behind it because you know my job is not my job is structure engineering running a business it's not really ideal or or any of that but so you really going back to what I said before you you know to be able to get family to make time so you I don't think it's ever been at the speed that we are now because why not you know if I think 2015 to 2000 and well probably probably around coffee time you know you have you have your tools and you just you just keep plotting along and I don't think you need to really oh yeah I can't speak it for myself some should be a cooperation between this all the time but for a small business for me small to medium business you sort of getting your own tools and you can call it but now now even even simple stuff like Office 365 they have so many new products out there that for cyber security and all that which you know which we have implemented and you know things like that you need to rely again on on find the right external partner that that keep giving this information and and you keep stay on top of it because you can really fail behind and you can find yourself that you know simple stuff like two factors notification I think it became like a master these days and you know it's been around for a while but with all the cyber security attacks there's been at this that this became like a mask for for everything these days so again lots of people still using that which I think is pretty crazy because as soon as you look into a little bit that's the first thing to do but they just show you that you need to you know you need to you can't just sit behind your desk and without look out there you have to spend your time find the time and this year also became a little bit of a ction I guess it kind of just became a nightmare where you know it's five o'clock have to run home you know this is what I always say I mean what work and and personal life and everything is sort of you know you need to go to work that you're happy you know you're happy and you're happy to to invest time as well on finding new things finding new Instagram and that that is the reward to say wow you know in the last six months we really make you know we make really make a promise on this and we really change this process so we got these new things in and that stuff you know might might be something that that you're watching some YouTube videos or listen to a podcast about about cyber security and you're learning new things from that and then after that when when the see this platter in your head that's when you you know you get someone else to do the work for you but at least you're driving the process for them because you can't have been rely just to understand our people you know giving you all the updates because otherwise you know I receive like I don't know how many emails I wake up on new products and stuff and you just delete that because they just noise pollution so I think you have to do this this research yourself oh Mike yeah not much not much to add I mean I think it's this idea of getting that right balance between um running the business and changing the business and you know if you over index on either one of those um you know you're either going to be left behind uh you know technologically or you know you're not going to get anything done because you're trying to adopt too many tools at once so again it comes back to your strategy your operational goals you know and and kind of getting a priority list of which tools and when recognizing that there is a pause and a consideration and you know and time to think through this and run a process to adopt a new tool don't try and just go at the speed of every new tool that's Landing in your your inbox uh as Mateo has rightly pointed out and I think Mike on that that's a very true thing to say because you know I'm a pretty a pretty fast movie person and when I when I see new stuff I get so excited and then and then I have to sit down with the managers and say the guys I see this is amazing you know and you know they said to me my you need to you need to slow down because you know people will not buy into it you know so I normally one per quarter and I say okay all right fair enough guys all right so each quarter we try to roll something out new and uh yeah it's uh yeah getting your people to moving from projects with that I think that is what is really challenging definitely thanks Mateo um I've got a question which has come through from Ryan wood um and Ryan's question I might drink this one it might be for you Mike what advice would you give to Industries where security and compatibility no Cloud open architecture requirements Drive organizations away from otherwise most fit for purpose Technologies I might bring Mateo in on this one oh um but um if I just if I understand the question it's like security kind of preventing the adoption of a tool is that is that the essence of the question which turns around yeah yeah definitely um and you know it we've had another question with regards to you know it's all about that privacy security concerns um and probably across projects Mateo if if I'm reading that question correctly yeah I mean I can offer a few a few thoughts uh and and yet again I'd love to hear Mateos um I think you know I've definitely been in a situation of of wanting to adopt actually um you know AI tools in the past and have been blocked on security grounds um you know I think you're speaking to legislation there's um you know obviously been movements in um uh Europe uh around gdpr and you know so a lot of that stuff is happening um you know to protect individual data um and you know which is obviously incredibly important in all of this um yeah again if I I'm getting the question sort of right I think you know there's no bypassing those things right like you have to make those decisions you have to seek advice if you don't feel like you have that internally in the business to understand what the risks are which you know we come back to that question right like if you're starting to then push the envelope of the tools that you want and need to efficiently run the business you've got to understand the secure iridium privacy implications of that there might be some costs involved in that right like once you start talking legal uh and things like that I think you know on the whole um there's there's you know this is probably not an area where you you you you take the most risk right like this is this is you know bread and butter of looking after a customer your business right I think it's a question probably of you know in business there's always some risk right and this is probably not an area where you take it um but again just make sure that you're getting the right advice um we've mentioned getting the right partner the right external conversation whether it's a free happy you know Pub chat uh or you need to go to the to the level of formal advice go down that path if the operational and strategic goals are important enough um it's worth the investment did you want to jump in yeah look security and and cyber security or that and for me this is this is not has become a non-negotiable and you know we had really you know put put like us you know what I call like a stop sign you know like you know look you know when you're walking within the hair environment that this is it you know you we can't have external Factor you know uh affecting the business um so I think I think the security things in uh it has become like a pretty serious concern of businesses because the disruption you could have from from something accidentally that that happened it's it's phenomenal like we got you know we got like a you know our staff constantly scamming in by messages on email pretending to be me asking them to do stuff like buying these are buying that and a couple of guys unfortunately have been scam you know which has been extremely sad and and and so uh you know we had we had like tied up this and you know the very very family by you know with with the various tools out there you know with office Texas five and you know you know upgrading license Etc and and stopping the user like a personal email so all that stuff because it it just can get like you know as simple as clicking a download on a Gmail that could affect your productivity of the business so you know I think until the cyber security became like a more uh a more like you know standard thing that we don't get scam or hack disorder I think every pieces have to be very careful of of how computer I use and where they use Etc because they again the the disruption for clients can be like can be you know a big big problem and can can you send a business blog really so so that's that's something we took a very hard line on that excellent it's been quite a a couple of questions just with regards to um let me just get to the questions uh it's very much around it's a a tool that can help integrate systems um engineering processes so I suppose Mateo it's you know from the project management to the to the actual integration of the systems specific engineering processes just were looking for some advice um yeah on that from yourself yeah look we the good thing about about this day soft they all have they all have an API that you can you can connect very softly together and developing the API it's uh it's not uh not straightforward but if you have if you have the right right people that can help you develop an API then you can really connect them you know the majority of the softer you know with each other and some software they have already API built in like for example total Synergy zero they just they just got an API and a connection stuff for you so I think I think that's what I normally do when when we're looking into software you want to look with software which partnership they have you know with each other because if those connections are pre-made for you that makes things very easy but for example we have like a number of software that you know that they don't talk to each other there's not like a pre-written API so you have to really develop an API now um then after that you have to you have to create a workflow you have to create a workflow how that things would work and so you have to really map it out and and get the things you know and you know get get get them out and that that will tell you what the API is doing so I think I think there's a there's really endless opportunity and once again you have to really pick you better because uh you know the important thing is uh is to win the war it's not to win so so you have you you have to pick you have to pick what you want to do and and have that long-term Vision you know which for me I have like you know I always think where the business is going the next three to five to ten years and and and and for me like that at Short Term like medium 10 like you know quarterly six months to one year and three years and make me think you know where I where I'm going and you know and so uh and and then and then to achieve that they decide okay what is going to be important so it's really a lot of strategic planning and then and then try to use you know developers to develop API to connect software and decide what this connection is to do because a lot of stuff as well you know can take a lot of time for little results so you want to you want to really maximize the gain of what you're trying to achieve so again once again if the Strategic thinking behind developing a tool inside the business that that will give you the maximum kind and for me it's always for me personally and the staff and everybody is how to how do I get time back that is always my goal because you know I love to do my own things and and I love to go home and knowing that things are done in a in in a very methodical way and you know for me using technology to to achieve that and make sure the key right you see it's done and that to me is what what really it's uh let's take all one of this how to develop new tools perfect excellent Mike did you want to add any closing comments because I think we're we're pretty much run out of time we've uh definitely charged through the the Q a yeah yeah just one thing that sort of come up as a theme um for me in all of this is I think you just want to make sure that you're moving in the right direction with some kind of quantifiable sense of the value that you're getting from new tech and as long as you and so you know that goes by a number of different names but like return on investment right or um I've heard you know more lately cost of inaction right so what are bad processes costing you and you know even going to the level of um of timing that right and even quite manually like how long is that taking how many people are involved even the most basic of those types of you know time spent analysis will really help to give confidence you know what I'm not adopting every tool that's out there I'm not connecting every every tool although I'd love to um but you know as long as you're moving towards time saved you know more business one um better better service um that that's the real sort of moral of the story wonderful look I I um that's all the time that we'll have for today so um please join me in once again thanking our speakers Mike cardo and material terrapally for their time and input today I'd also like to thank Engineers Australia's industry partner total Synergy for their support and to help us improve and plan for our future thought leader series if you if you plead the short feedback form which is linked in the description box below and finally thank you to you our audience for joining us and we hope to see you again at our next thought leaders event good afternoon

Channel: Engineers Australia

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Id: JatkX5jHkzU

Length: 88min 50sec (5330 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023