While developing our IT services for real estate developers, we noticed that some of the modules targeted at specific tasks can simultaneously be used together with other modules, which are tasked with different functions, resulting in a so-called “snowball effect.”

For example, let’s consider one of the most interesting modules - “corporate prices.” This module originally was developed to calculate estimated construction budget for a building with complete project documents, so that the finance department could provide the most up-to-date data, and company management could approve the project if the numbers are within the planned budget or could request corrections should the numbers be above those originally planned for the completion of this project. But we also noticed that the module “corporate prices” allows making more effective decisions during procurement process, as the procurement manager receiving proposals is able to compare the prices for each item with the current corporate price, which in turn brings the items with significant price differences to the front and nudges the procurement manager to continue negotiations with the suppliers to lower the costs, even before the official procurement process has started.

Statistical analysis shows that incorporation of the “corporate prices” module into the procurement processes results in the cumulative effect of approximately 3-5% savings from the total construction budget. We will discuss using the “corporate prices” module together with other modules to achieve the “snowball effect” in our future posts.