Argent

The Customer

Since 1981, Argent has delivered major commercial, residential, education, cultural and community developments in the UK’s largest cities. Argent is involved in the full development process – from identifying and assembling sites, developing designs and obtaining planning permission through to financing, project management of the construction process, letting, asset management and (sometimes) selling. It also manages and maintains buildings and estates.

The Challenges

As the company behind the regeneration of King’s Cross and other innovative large city-scale developments, Argent manages multiple projects and people over long periods of time. Argent’s success with these multimillion pound projects relies on its partnerships – with investors, landowners, local authorities, consultants, contractors and customers. To build strong relationships with these partners and effectively manage the projects Argent needs visibility of every contact and the projects they are involved with. Without this it is difficult and time consuming to understand who is working on which projects.

Moving away from disparate and unstructured contact data

To continue with its growth and successful delivery of some of the country’s most high profile projects, Argent knew they needed to improve the situation. They turned to Hitachi Solutions and selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the solution. There were many thousands of contacts held in various ways and only available to the individual employees on their local devices. There was no central view ‘single source of truth’ for all contacts, what projects they were involved with or what relationship they had with its employees. The result was duplication of effort.

The Solution

Following the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrated with Microsoft SharePoint all employees can access the centrally held contact records to view contacts and project relationships, activities and other data, Gagliano explains, “In the past staff might use an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document to store directories of contacts and related information. Now contacts are kept up-to-date in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, then automatically synched to desktop and mobile devices. Staff now have accurate and complete contact information at their fingertips, when they need it.” Gagliano adds, “Anyone can self-serve through Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it’s so much more efficient and there’s no longer any risk of losing essential data.”

Easier access to improved project reporting

Argent employees can now see a strategic picture of projects and the people involved in them. Gagliano says, “Staff have access to defined reports built in advance allowing users to self-service from project directories. People have better visibility and are empowered to look at data in different ways. We have a better understanding of the work we’re doing and how it involves our supply chain and other key stakeholders.”

The Future

Gagliano acknowledges the approach from the Hitachi Solutions team, highlighting, “Despite having bigger clients than us Hitachi Solutions are always available when we need them. The team has been very flexible in fitting in with our changes and timescales to suit delivery. I would be happy to share my positive experience with anyone that’s considering working with them.” Gagliano concludes, “We have developed a great relationship with their lead consultant and this has also been a key part of the project success.”