Since Gratte Brothers began in 1946 we’ve been proud of the innovative, high-quality services we deliver across the building services industry. We’ll be the first ones to admit that as an engineering company, a digital transformation hasn’t quite made it to the top of our priority list, historically. Until now, that is…
We want to continue delivering the best possible service to our customers, so to this end, Gratte Brothers Group is in the midst of an ongoing digital transformation! We’re taking a golden thread approach to our digital transformation, ensuring all core processes are being reviewed and improved.
Like many companies, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated our digital transformation. We’re proud to be emerging from the pandemic as a more resilient and future-proof business with the flexibility to meet the demands of the new hybrid world.
As part of the third generation of Grattes who have recently taken on stewardship of the company, Group Managing Director, David Gratte has said of the transformation: “It is an exciting time as we undertake our digital transformation, developing a number of in-house solutions and digitising processes and forms across the Group. Digitalisation will futureproof our business and will offer us greater efficiencies while continuing to improve the overall service delivery to our clients. It is great to have a growing team of internal talent to design, develop and implement these bespoke solutions to our exact needs”.
We’re approaching each aspect of our digitisation with a client and staff-first methodology: looking to add maximum value to our client interactions and make our processes as efficient and user-friendly as possible for our staff. Alongside this, we’re also paying close attention to the environmental impact of digitisation. As a combined effort between our Environmental Advisor, HSEQ Director, Digital Transformation team and IT department, we are reviewing our electronic waste disposal processes and conducting a careful analysis of all new processes to retain control of our environmental impact as a business.
The key innovations we are proud to share (so far) are:
- Site Diary App: We built our own site diary app in-house for our Mechanical and Electrical division, Gratte Brothers Limited (GBL). On discovering that the apps currently available on the market lacked certain things we needed, and included lots we didn’t, we chose to design and build our own. This is where we were able to invest in creating a truly tailored, future-proof solution that served our exact needs.
- Biometrics: We’re limited as to how much we can announce in this area, but we’re working on utilising biometrics within particular processes to increase security and maximise efficiency.
- Customer Queries: Analysing data and collating client feedback has allowed us to implement a new and improved process; routing client queries through digital channels. This transforms our customer experience by cutting down wait-time for clients and making it easier for teams to track query progress internally.
- Digital Forms: We’re digitising our libraries or forms to minimise the need for printing and time spent. Plus, this process ensures that these forms are accessible to everyone whether working remotely, on-site or in one of our offices.
There are many more innovations in the Gratte Brothers pipeline, such as the tailored digital solutions we’re creating in response to the current high profile Building safety Act: an approach that sets us apart from the market trend of ‘off-the-shelf’ purchasing. There are many more projects that we are currently unable to share the details of due to security and ongoing development. However, we’ll be delighted to share more announcements as they reach completion, so, watch this space…!
A big thank you goes to our Digital Innovation Manager, Aneta Neuman, for providing the insight behind this piece.
