California Construction Services Firm Finds Innovation Inspiration with Trimble Viewpoint

When you think of creativity in construction, you might think of amazing structures with incredible architecture—or impressive ancient builds that have puzzled and awed visitors and historians for decades.

But Vijay Kumar considered creativity in construction on a different spectrum altogether. As chief information officer of central California construction services firm Basic Resources, Inc. Kumar had a different thought in mind: How could his company harness the vast construction technology capabilities of Trimble Viewpoint to improve the overall efficiency and experience for their customers?

That question—and the ensuing answer—led Kumar and Basic Resources to develop a unique customer self-service portal that could answer the changing needs of both their business and its customers. This effort tied together data and workflows between Trimble Viewpoint’s Vista ERP solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Command Alcon, and resulted in a Trimble Viewpoint award for Most Creative Use of Viewpoint Technology.

Below, you can watch the full video of Kumar discussing how this innovative project came together. But here are a few key takeaways:

As Kumar notes, the customer self service portal was built on a combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Vista and Command Alcon. Leveraging the cloud, Basic Resources used these solutions to create an interactive portal, pulling customer data from its CRM, work order, invoicing, project status information and more from Vista and tying these together to provide a platform where clients could easily access information relevant to their work or agreements with Basic Resources.

“Customers have real time access to search and view their invoices, tickets, order details, account balances, and make payments online,” Kumar said. “Customers can drill down from invoices and tickets to electronic copies of signed documents.”

Before, Kumar noted, it took a lot of time for the back office to clear invoices, and it was very paper-based—which was especially problematic during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “With the customer portal, we are giving customers easy access to data while also cutting down on redundant processes and middle costs that happen between the back office and customer,” he said.

The easy-to-use portal allows customers to create reports to track orders and shipped quantities. It has improved customer service while reducing administrative time for both Basic Resources and its customers. “It’s a win-win for everyone,” Kumar said.

Kumar said Basic Resources chose Trimble Viewpoint’s construction management solutions, “because they’re one of the strongest ERP software platforms in the construction and material sales industry. We can integrate our line of business applications into one database for all of our back office functions. Trimble Viewpoint gives us a centralized platform to automate manual processes into integrated, streamlined processes.”

The company further extended itsVista capabilities by implementing additional tools like Viewpoint HR Management, which is helping streamline the company’s HR functions and extend the same self-serve capabilities to employees as well.

“With Viewpoint software, we’ve created a data-driven, fact-based culture across our company,” Kumar said.“We’ve published various financial reports, operation reports, and power BI dashboards for our higher management and operations to access. Our employees can see the data based on their roles and what’s relevant to them.”

Watch Kumar’s full interview here: