Tags Innovation, Entrepreneur, Strategy, Growth, Data management

Ask the right question

"Thinking outside the box" isn't always a cliche. As Mitesh Vekaria of Vascroft Contractors Ltd explains to Oliver Cann, it can also be the kernel of a very effective IT strategy for business.

Taken literally, "thinking outside the box" could mean saving serious money. Or at least, it can if you ask the right questions of the right people.

Take all those hundreds – if not thousands – of separate bits of information that your business creates each day and has to store somewhere (and make easily available, if needed). Orders, contact details, even emails would start to pile up if your business hadn't invested in somewhere to store them.

The thing is, while new and improved storage "boxes" are introduced regularly – from more efficient servers to the latest in "knowledge management" – companies today are asking whether they need any boxes at all. Instead, a business landscape is emerging where these boxes are more than just containers, where they offer an opportunity to deliver savings through more intelligent use of networked resources. In other words: asking the right questions is leading to more efficient business processes.

One company that found that asking the right questions about its IT infrastructure can translate onto the bottom line is London-based specialist builders Vascroft Contractors Limited (www.vascroft.com). Established by executive officer Mitesh Vekaria's father and uncle in 1977, Vascroft has grown from building garage extensions to luxury houses, five-star hotels and some of the country's grandest Hindu temples. Periods of rapid growth however were not matched with parallel investments in IT infrastructure and when the firm was preparing to move into its new, purpose-built HQ in 2005, some heavy lifting was required to bring the business into line.

"By the mid-nineties, the company finally got around to putting PCs on each desk, but everything kept getting outdated, with haphazard modifications built on year after year," says Vekaria. "Our new building gave us the opportunity to start afresh."

To help in its root and branch reform, Vascroft called in IBM business partner LAN 2 LAN to look at ways in which IT could help grow the business. LAN 2 LAN’s first step was to get to know Vascroft as a company and then work with it to create a roadmap, signposting the big investments and improvements that could help boost productivity. First step: hardwired and wireless networks for the new HQ. The building size meant networked meeting rooms and extra desk space for new recruits – impossible luxuries in the old lodgings, became a reality.

But Vascroft is a construction company, with staff employed on at least 20 different sites at any one time. This meant BlackBerry wireless PDAs for managers, to keep them up to date without being chained to a desk-bound computer for email. Wireless communications also meant site reports, drawing plans and other site-specific material can be sent back to HQ without having to burn a CD or printing and physically posting it.

"Vascroft involved a full office move and relocation, re-branding exercise and complete network redesign from cabling upwards," says Gary Duke, sales director at LAN 2 LAN. "It was running applications of all ages, with lots of home-grown databases: they needed consistent systems that would grow with their business with minimum training requirements, plus mail archiving to ensure best practice and compliance."

Vekaria is convinced the return on investment will be worth the effort: "We don't have external shareholders, so our internal reporting procedures tend to have an informal style, but we know we are saving money because we are working more efficiently. For example, we now use Lotus Notes for group files. IT used to be silo-based, but now it’s job-based and anyone can resolve most queries in the event that the person responsible isn’t available. To put it another way, we spent probably a quarter of a million pounds and in three years, we will have got it back."

As well as saving money, cutting-edge communications have also contributed to the top line, by enabling Vascroft to bid for work it otherwise may not have been able to. One example Vekaria gives is a recent house build for a member of the Saudi royal family. On this project, he needed to co-ordinate with Bill Gates’s electrician in Seattle, interior designers in Boston and Riyadh, structural engineers in the Midlands and a customer who at any one time could have been anywhere in the world. With the old communications, bringing these elements together would have been impossible.

The investment also means that previously unconnected parts of the Vascroft empire, such as its joinery shop, metal-working division, specialist plastering department and DIY shop in Willesden, are now networked to the rest of the business for the first time.

Says Duke: "Employees everywhere now have all the information they need at their fingertips – end-to-end accountability of data and transactions, plus full mobile office via their browser or BlackBerry if they’re on site." Asked whether this investment was all about bringing Vascroft into the information age or delivering a genuine competitive advantage, Vekaria is unequivocal.

"Are we ahead of the curve? Our budget isn't like that of the big boys in our industry, but we’re on par in terms of communications. Where we're probably still behind is in using websites to collaborate on documents and designs. We're getting to this next but the demand hasn't been as great as we thought: for example, if you're doing a four-week Burger King fit-out then by the time you get broadband in you're already on to the next job. But our roadmap is totally flexible: the infrastructure is in place so anything can be added inexpensively when the time is right."

The plan is for Vascroft and LAN 2 LAN to review the set-up on a regular basis and figure out where the next improvement can be made: with the email archiving and BlackBerry roll out now complete, the company will probably look to tackle Web collaboration.

In the meantime, Vascroft has a lot of work in the pipeline in East London relating to the Olympic construction effort and plans more Olympian efforts of its own before then.

Vascroft Contractors: In Brief

Vascroft (www.vascroft.com) has been involved with the bespoke construction and refurbishment of hotels, restaurants and specialist sites since its incorporation in 1977, from the Green Park Hotel to the Savoy Court Hotel. Vascroft also specialises in building luxurious homes in and around London, and is on the list of Approved Contractors working for Councils including London Borough of Brent, Ealing, Harrow and Lambeth, housing association Notting Hill Trust. Vascroft’s in-house specialised joinery and carpentry works have even been applied to the building of a Hindu Temple known as "Shree Swaminarayan Temple" in north London back in 1988.

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