
Szabadics Group, the third-generation leading construction company with several divisions and subsidiaries first placed their trust in the global enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of IFS in 2011, and based on their decision it has proven a pioneering decision in terms of business IT support. The company carried out the first upgrade after five years of system usage, then at the beginning of 2024 it was decided to switch to the IFS Cloud version, which offers an evergreen software update model in addition to a platform-independent user interface that adapts to displays of all sizes.
The legal predecessor of the Szabadics Group, the individual enterprise of József Szabadics, was founded in 1989 with 8 employees. Until 2012, the core activity of the company was utility construction and subsurface civil engineering, which was supplemented by the water construction division in 2012, followed by the start of the drinking water division in 2013. In 2014, the scope of activities of the company group was expanded even further, with a construction company specializing in ferroconcrete structures, and in 2016 with competences in pipeline construction and steel structure production. In March 2018, the company organized their surface construction activities into a separate business unit in order to be able to play a decisive role in this area of the construction industry. At the same time, during this continuous development, the company preserved the values that represented the foundations of the family business. By now, as a third-generation company, armed with family foundations and values, they are present at the forefront of the construction industry not only in Hungary, but also in Romania and Croatia.
Tradition, innovation, sustainability
During their decades of activity, Szabadics has always aimed to implement and use the latest, innovative technologies that can make their work faster, more efficient and of even better quality. To this end, they constantly strive to develop better technical solutions. Their goal is to ensure that, in addition to competitive prices, the work they perform is flawless in technical perspective, while at the same time putting as little burden on the environment as possible during construction.
The secret of competitiveness hides in data
Until 2007, the company calculated project costs using Excel sheets. This method was completely adequate at the end of the nineties and a few years after the turn of the millennium,when there was still a 20-25 percent profit on a project. However, with the market conditions changing and 5-10 percent achievable in profit margins, more detailed data and analyses had become necessary to maintain and increase competitiveness. Recognizing this, the company began large-scale IT development. The work teams were provided with mobile data collection devices and expected to collect various data on the usage of materials, tools and work time. Thanks to this, a database of millions of records was built in a few years, which could be used for the pre-calculation of future projects. A significant amount of development was realized in this system, which was basically an accounting-centric, custom developed software. As the company developed, more and more needs arose, including the issue of centralized document management, the need for electronic invoice authorization, the ability to extract controlling data, and the possibility of data mining. In addition to all of this, the number of users also began to grow substantially.
IT support beyond financials
The company hired a consulting firm to assess their needs. Initially, the business solutions of six to eight suppliers were scrutinized, and then the range of possible solutions was narrowed down to two or three companies and products that Szabadics could imagine working with. The company was specifically looking for a solution that was project-oriented in terms of business logic and supported projects from end-to-end, including documents, technical specifications, and resource usage. Because of the business logic and functionality of the solution, the company finally decided on the IFS ERP system, which can fully support project-based activities.
“The implementation was surprisingly smooth and fast, we implemented the entire project management, document management, financial and accounting support modules in 5 months.” – recalls Tamás Kovács, chairman of the Board of Szabadics Group. According to Tamás Kovács, it was a big help that the owners clearly stated: “the goal is not to reconstruct the past, but to move forward and operate in a different way.”
Well-received ERP, tangible benefits
According to Tamás Kovács, by the time the moment of go-live had been reached, his colleagues were already looking forward to work with the new system, because they realized how much easier it would be to gain information from it. The welcome of the IFS system was therefore warm, despite the fact that the implementation caused a considerable additional workload from the operation point of view.
At that time, the company was already working at many sites at the same time, and the revenue was significantly higher than before, but despite this, thanks to the system, the stock level did not increase. It was possible to plan much more precisely than before, and by updating the projects, the enterprise level business plan was easily created. However, Tamás Kovács considers that one of the biggest benefits of the system is that it eliminated information monopolies within the company.
The next level – also in terms of IT support
Momentum, reform and legacy – these three key terms define the new strategy of the Szabadics group. Extensive operations based on the youthful vigour of the third generation and a new strategy gave birth to the Szabadics Group name, which is also connected with a new group-level corporate image. The group decided on the same principles regarding ERP solution supporting the execution of their new strategy. The ERP system developed by the IFS company, which has been in use for 12 years and has been well-proven, has remained in line with the “legacy”, along with the InfoConsulting Hungary team, responsible for previous implementations, system updates, and continuous solution support. However, in the spirit of “reform”, they decided to upgrade to the latest ERP of IFS, IFS Cloud. In addition to improved, broader capabilities, as well as a platform-independent user interface that provides full functionality and user experience, even on mobile devices. IFS Cloud’s evergreen software update model enables the client to put into use the latest developments every six months without hindering the support of daily operations, thus, in the future, it will no longer be necessary to carry out complex upgrade projects.
“Nothing is permanent except change” – Heraclitus’s thought is shared by Roland Szabadics, the COO of the Szabadics Group, since the company group is constantly changing, adapting to the market environment and internal needs, and thus the ERP solution that supports their operation must also be able to keep the pace. Moreover, as an innovation platform, it should proactively drive development.
“With the upgrade project, our aim is to not continue our previous, not always pertinent practices on an ‘always done it this way’ basis. Instead, we consider it of the utmost importance to assess our previous operation, to eliminate any unused functions and to discover and integrate the new modules that are important to us. These goals are fully supported by InfoConsulting Hungary’s professionals. Our further goal with the version change is to make the cooperation between the project management modules and other support functions even tighter, and to fully eliminate information islands.” – explains the COO.
Regarding the cooperation between the customer and the supplier, as well as the key to the success of the version update project, Roland Szabadics added: “I think that the parties approached the entire process with a very strict system of requirements, schedule, time and cost management, as this is the only way to end up with a result that both the Szabadics Group and InfoConsulting Hungary could view the project as a success.”
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