People and personalization: Four digital transformation tips from a leading architecture firm

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Digital transformation promises two things: smarter, more efficient alternatives to previously labour-intensive processes, and new business models that can transform the bottom line. But what does this really mean for architecture firms, and how can they deliver a successful digital transformation?

We recently hosted a webinar with Rodney Paesler, Managing Director at Scott Carver, a forward-thinking architecture firm based in Sydney. In this session, Rodney addresses these exact questions, and explores how Scott Carver’s own team found digital transformation success.

In this blog, we’ll explore the key takeaways from the webinar and look at how other firms can learn from Scott Carver’s success.

An unlikely start to a digital journey

Scott Carver’s digital journey started from an unlikely place. There was no big push for a new business model, nor an aging process that threatened the business. It started from an understanding that the world was changing.

As Managing Director Rodney Paeslar puts it: “I have a love/hate relationship with digital technology and data. But in our world, there’s now more information available than a human can reasonably consume. To keep up with the speed of information and effectively run our businesses, we have to find new tools that can harness this data and help improve our decision making.”

This reckoning with data didn’t occur amid a period of challenge or difficulty for the firm. In fact, it came during a period of growth – but one Rodney couldn’t explain with simple profit and loss statements. He needed more information to work out if Scott Carver was truly on the right path to secure further success.

Four lessons from Scott Carver’s transformation

Rodney and the Scott Carver team began transforming their business to bring more clarity and insight to its strategic decisions. But rather than focus on a single system, process or department, the architecture firm approached its transformation from several angles – including using tools like Deltek PIM to collect and analyse more data from across the business.

Scott Carver’s holistic transformation journey can teach us four important lessons about digital success:

Put people first

“We use Deltek PIM to get lots of data on our systems and processes. But we also analyse data from our HR software and a regular employee survey to understand how the team is getting on. This continued focus on people is a vital part of the transformation journey. Happy people lead to happy clients, and that leads to happy cash flow for the business.”

Use digital systems to maintain digital hygiene

“Your systems are only worthwhile when they’re well maintained and fed with the right data. That’s obvious. What might not be is that you can use those same digital systems to help you keep on top of your digital hygiene. By setting up the right alerts, you can make it easier to know when action is required from a human to keep your digital systems at their best.”

Think outside the box

“While collecting data was a big driver for our transformation, we took some interesting directions with how we action that data. We built a digital twin, emulating the entire business in a digital format. This lets us work out what decisions we need to make each day – and how we’re going to make them.”

Personalise data for the individual

“Everyone in the business has different goals, so why would they need the same data? We made some changes to our Deltek PIM to ensure we could give everyone in the business a personal dashboard with their own KPIs and data sets.”

Bring people and technology together for maximum success

Using technology to enable people to work in smarter ways is one of the pillars of successful digital transformation. Scott Carver’s approach shows how this can be done, but we’ve only scratched the service of what Rodney and his team have achieved.

About Scott Carver

Established in 1983, Scott Carver’s team has a broad range of international experience with specialist knowledge in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and urban design, and a passion to create exceptional projects across any sector, including hotels, resorts, cultural, arts, hospitality, residential, retail, sport, recreation, mixed-use, tourism, commercial, leisure, workplace, parks & open space, urban renewal and more. Anywhere across the globe.