Brown Drainage & Construction
Overcoming challenges for high calibre organisations in the 21st Century
Director Michael Draper fondly recalls the story behind the birth of his company, Brown Drainage and Construction. Dick Draper, Michael’s father, decided to submit a tender for a project on his own, separate to his current employer. Obviously, he couldn’t use his name as it would alert his current employer, so when he arrived to pick up the tender document he plucked a name out of the air. He simply thought, ‘Brown’ something-has-to-go-with-it ‘Drainage’. Hence the name, BROWN DRAINAGE LTD.
The rest is history; 30 years on and Dick’s son, Michael, who along with his wife and Operations Manager Sherie, are taking the reigns of this highly respected company that operates in New Zealand’s Waikato region. The chief driver of growth to this point has been a widely respected reputation for high-quality work, built around the instilled values of strong family and work ethics, reliability and doing the job well.
Challenges for the high calibre organisation
For Michael and Sherie, the challenges are only just beginning. They view the next important phase for the business as upgrading and maintaining the systems required to operate such a high calibre organisation in the 21st Century.
One of the systems that Brown Drainage and Construction saw as critical to their future direction was the estimating system. Coming from estimating in spreadsheets and by long-hand, Michael realised the need for a system that would organise and control the estimating process, making it more beneficial for the long term.
“I was looking for a system that kept all the estimates in one place so I could go back into past tenders and see how jobs were performed. Benchmark Estimating Software allowed me to do this, and more. If I have a job that is similar to one we have previously completed, I can bring up the past tender, make a few quick modifications and it is ready to send to the client.”
In addition to this, Michael benefits from functionality in Benchmark Estimating Software that allows the import and automatic pricing of a client’s schedule. Michael says, “When I receive a schedule to price, I can bring it into Benchmark Estimating Software via the Load Spreadsheet function. I can then run Auto-Allocate which automatically assigns our costs to our clients estimate, making the process accurate and efficient.”
From its humble beginnings, Brown Drainage and Constructions has grown on the back of strong values and high-quality work to become highly respected drainage and civil construction company winning Action International’s Business of the Year for 2006. Now, Michael and Sherie are eager to tackle the challenges of the 21st Century, sound in the knowledge that they have control over their estimating, and that they will continue to efficiently produce accurate tenders.
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