Structa Achieves New Levels of Efficiency with Deltek ERP

An Interview with Michael Ibbeson, Co-Founder and CEO of Structa LLP.

As a structural, civil and geo-environmental engineering consultancy firm, Structa's mission is to create a sustainable legacy for those who construct and inhabit the built environment. But, to achieve its goals, the firm needed to combine engineering project management with an uncompromising approach to digital innovation.

We spoke with Michael Ibbeson, co-founder and CEO of Structa LLP, to look back at how the firm has used technology to establish a solid foundation of engineering project management – and how this technology is now helping the firm achieve new levels of efficiency, visibility and success.

Expanding Technology to Support Project Management

"If you want a job done well,” says Michael. “You've got to give your people the right tools.” For Structa, this initially meant offering engineers hybrid-cloud environments, cloud-based storage, and remote access to powerful workstations.

Then, Structa made the same commitment to clients: combining a cloud-based delivery and document distribution system with a flexible approach. As Michael explains, “We use a client’s preferred platforms if a project needs that particular requirement. I think that’s why we’re considered a reliable, trustworthy partner.”

The key step in their digital transformation was to give Structa’s leaders the tools they needed to get reliable insights and make them central to the business. “We developed strong engineering project management systems built around Deltek ERP,” says Michael. “Introducing new systems and aligning our management processes improved our decision-making."

“Deltek helps us manage our business… The data comes together to give us a clear vision of how the business is performing and what lies ahead.”

– Michael Ibbeson, Co-Founder and CEO, Structa LLP

No Limits to Insight & Visibility with Deltek’s BI Tool

Building from Deltek’s core project and financial management solution, Structa leverages powerful business intelligence (BI) to give its team deeper insights into opportunities and resources. As Michael puts it: “We're using this tool to visualize and understand the data from our ERP system in real-time.”

And, with more streamlined processes and greater insight Structa can bill more accurately and increase profitability. "We can go in and look at all the proposals we have out there," explains Michael. "And we can ask, 'How many of them are we winning?’ But also, ‘Why are we losing work? Are we pricing too high?'”

“Deltek helps us manage our business,” Michael summarizes. “It gives us confidence that we know what the next few months look like. The data comes together to give us a clear vision of how the business is performing and what lies ahead.”

Building Resilience, to be Ready for the Next Challenge

Structa has seen benefits throughout its journey with Deltek. “Aligning business processes with our ERP gave immediate structure to our business,” says Michael. “We've been able to better plan our projects by having better visibility and control. And now, we're visualizing data to give us actionable insights.”

Those insights helped Structa reduce risk and mitigate the impacts of recent macroeconomic events.

“There's been a lot of changes that might once have caused us some anxiety,” says Michael. “But we've been able to harness all the information from our project-based ERP to give us real insight into what will happen, rather than relying on our emotions or instincts.”

Structa hopes to continue to establish a core of excellence in engineering delivery, to help drive the business forward and allow it to grow. Because, as leaders like Michael are discovering, digital transformation is a continuous improvement. And for Structa, Deltek’s ERP is a part of that journey.