Lee Technology Group Bids Smarter with Esticom

Increasing Project Win Rates with Innovative Time-to-Bid Technology

THE CHALLENGE

Based out of Austin, Texas, Lee Technology Group (LTG) is the premier low voltage contractor for commercial businesses in the Central Texas region. With a team of BICSI RCDD certified designers, estimators, project managers and field staff, they have the resources to be the single source provider for workplace technology solutions within an organization.

In early 2015, Lee Technology Group was facing the challenge of being able to quickly and accurately bid on projects that would result in new business. Their outdated method of printed paper plans, spreadsheets, and whiteboards to estimate projects became a bottleneck that resulted in losing business because they could not turn the bids around fast enough.

“We started receiving an overwhelming number of project bid requests, but with an increasingly shorter amount of time to submit the bid prior to the due date” said Jesse Guenter, CEO & President at Lee Technology group.

Time intensive manual bidding processes and short time frames to meet bid dates increasingly began to frustrate our team and in many cases, meant we would have to turn away lucrative projects largely because they couldn’t submit the bid fast and accurately enough to be competitive. The initial strategy to remedy this dilemma for LTG was to hire more estimators, but that inevitably lead to increased overhead costs that were not sustainable over time. LTG knew there had to be a smarter approach. That’s when they began to research technology that could help solve the problem.

THE SOLUTION

In 2015, the construction market took off in Texas and this only magnified LTG’s need to find a solution to their outdated bidding process. They increasingly began evaluating and applying technology providers but found that most tools were only slightly better than using paper plans & spreadsheets and that they’d typically need 3-4 different tools just to get the bid ready for consideration.

Eventually, LTC was referred to Esticom as a technology solution from a trusted contractor in the area. They visited Esticom’s website and signed up for a 14-day evaluation. During the evaluation, it became apparent early on that LTG had found the solution to minimize their time to bid. These initial results convinced LTG to acquire the full Esticom platform and apply it to their entire operation.

THE RESULTS

Since deploying Esticom, LTG’s collective team has begun using the product, allowing them to efficiently bid projects significantly faster and with greater accuracy. A typical estimator on their team went from bidding 2-3 projects per week to bidding 7-8 projects per week and with a much higher win rate. Additionally, they’ve been able to collaborate on projects without printing paper plans, resulting in a cost-effective, streamlined handoff process between their main office and field teams in real time.

Overall, LTG believes Esticom’s technology is bringing preconstruction teams out of the stone age and allowing them to get more done with less, and in turn, win more bids to generate higher profitability.

“We’ve been extremely happy with the move and would recommend that any subcontractor looking to grow their business move away from paper-based processes and spreadsheets and instead enhance their bidding methods through technology like the Esticom’s platform,” said Guenter.