Up Close With Home Renovations

By Author: Scott Gwin
Total Articles: 6
Comment this article

Early adoption of new technology helps drive this family run home renovation business to award winning success and double digit growthQuality tools are essential for quality work in the Construction and Renovation business. That has always been an axiom. Today, those tools extend beyond wood chisels, utility knifes, and speciality power tools. If you are OakWood, Ottawa's largest and most experienced renovation business, your "tool box" now includes cloud computing, tablet PCs, iPads, and construction specific customer relationship management (CRM) software that drives exceptional project management and attentive, high-contact customer service.Technology drives superior project managementJohn Liptak, President and CEO, Oakwood attributes much of his company's recent success to an unrelenting commitment to embrace new technology for home renovations and construction techniques. "We have always been an early adopter and are quick to embrace technology as a way to achieve new efficiencies, higher quality standards, and a competitive advantage," says Liptak.Technology underpins all of OakWood's processes and helps drive the best ...
... planning and project management capabilities in the city. "Project management, and managing a project successfully from start to finish, is an area where I believe we really excel," comments Liptak. "We have a full-time scheduler who helps manage all of our trades and suppliers and we have dedicated project managers who maintain constant communication with our clients."RhonaLahey, one of OakWood's many satisfied customers comments on OakWood's proven project management expertise. "OakWood actually completed our renovation a week ahead of schedule!" she confirms. "When I told friends about that, many of whom had also gone through a renovation, they were absolutely amazed. But their reactions to our new space were even better - ‘fabulous', ‘amazing', ‘unbelievable'," she quickly adds.Sub-contractors and customers benefit from state-of-the-art systemsAgain, technology is the grist that makes the OakWood, an Ottawa Home Renovation Company, and machine really hum. Each step in the OakWood Design + Build approach is supported by specialized processes, expertise, and computerized systems. Sub- contractors and customers alike benefit from the marriage of technology and the OakWood home renovation process. To punctuate this, a sophisticated CRM project management system supports all renovations with project schedules being updated every day."We liked the idea that they make use of project management tools and that the project schedule was updated weekly," reports Dan Wayner, an OakWood customer. "We had no real surprises and all change orders but one was initiated by us so we ultimately had control of expenditures. Overall, our home renovation was much less stressful than we anticipated," he adds.Schedules can be accessed instantly, in real-time, by OakWood's Production Managers in the field, who are equipped with state-of-the-art tablet PCs that are connected to the office's CRM system. Similarly, OakWood Customer Service Representatives carry snazzy new iPads which are used to quickly show customers beautiful images of relevant renovations during the initial concept development stage of the design process. Do you want to see a super close-up image of what that Silestone® kitchen counter or specialty faucet looks like? No problem. With the touch of a finger, presto you are instantly looking at a close-up of the details you want to see.Scott is the author of this article on Up Close with Home Renovations. Find more information about Home Renovations here.