Heath Gascoigne (00:38):

Hello, welcome ladies and gentlemen. My name is Heath Gas coigne and I’m the host of the Business Transformation Podcast. And this is the show for business Transmit who are part business strategists, part business designers, part collaborators, and part negotiators business T have moved past just business design and includes oversight of implementation of those business designs and business [00:01:00] transformations, and includes stakeholder management, coordination, and negotiation. If you work in strategy, development and implementation and work to ensure that the strategy is aligned to the business design and technology, you are probably a business transmitter. This is the show where we speak to industry experts and professionals to share their stories, strategies and insights to help you start turn around and grow your business transformation. Welcome to the Business Transformation Podcast, and in this episode we are talking to one of those industry experts. [00:01:30] We are talking to Feilipe. Now, Feilipe, I want to make sure I get this pronunciation of your surname correct. Okay. Fifth time, right? Okay. Alright, moving right along. Okay, so Philippe is a more than two decades experience in digital transformation in the construction industry. Now, that may come for a paradigm shift for some of the audience there. This is construction. We’re talking buildings, concrete,

[00:02:00] hard, bricks and mortar. Digital transformation in that industry for the last 20 years has now has his own practice. So we are going to get into as we do cover on the show, welcome to the show. First of all, Philippe, how are you?

Felipe Manzatucci (02:14):

Thank you here. Yeah, very well. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me, Michelle.

Heath Gascoigne (02:17):

Pleasure. My pleasure. Okay, so as a business transformation expert in construction for more than two decades, we’re going to cover for our audience, we have three points we always cover is the industry. What is the market

[00:02:30] doing right now in terms of digital transformation in the construction industry? Are they doing it right? Are they doing it wrong? Are they buying laggards, they miles behind or they may be the leaders, what’s working, what’s not working? Number two is over these 20 years of experience. As I say, I should also said that Philippe is also a former engineer. So here is a guy that comes from the business, from operations, is now in their consulting role. And my personal preference or the audience would know is that it’s always good when

[00:03:00] you’ve got a consultant that comes from the business, they speak one the business’s language and they know what it’s like and they feel the pain, have felt the pain of what it’s like where they are now.

(03:09):

So that’s where Philippe comes from. So in terms of number two, your approach that you follow, is there an approach that you follow when you go into clients onto projects to run their digital transformation projects in the construction industry? And if so, what is that approach? And number three, having done these multi-year around the world, global projects for over 20 years,

[00:03:30] if you could do it all again, what would you do differently? Okay, starting off first one. Okay. The digital transformation in the construction industry. Now this is the paradigm shift for a lot of people. Maybe we’re talking lend lease, construction, business, digital transformation. Where does digital transformation come into the construction industry?

Felipe Manzatucci (03:53):

So I think it’s a good point you make that about paradigm shift, it can be seen as that

[00:04:00] I’ve been long enough in the industry now to have a strong view about what’s happening or a clear view as to what’s happening, what’s happening in the industry. About 10 years ago, I would say maybe more 15 years max, we’ve seen the construction industry beginning to the way he is falling in love with data, right? Oh yeah, really?

Heath Gascoigne (04:25):

Yeah.

Felipe Manzatucci (04:26):

Well, is that kind of knowing

[00:04:30] that there’s data out there that we can access and we can do something good with it. So this kind of movement started about, as I said, 10, 15 years ago, very shyly. Some organizations could see the power, the potential of actually capturing data and doing something magical with it. But then compared to other industries, we were just not there. We didn’t have the tools, we didn’t have the skills more than anything, to be honest. So

[00:05:00] it was really hard. It was very slow start. And you may not know this, but the industry, the construction industry works in very tight margins.

Heath Gascoigne (05:09):

So

Felipe Manzatucci (05:10):

Really, really risk adverse. So anything that is new that comes through that may be seen as a disruptor to the way in which people operate, it tends to be seen from far away. Let others do that first and then I’ll follow. So it’s a bit of a catch 22 thing. Unless

[00:05:30] someone actually gets it done and puts it forward and develops a methodology that can be copied by other organizations or shared knowledge, it’s not going to happen. And that’s what we saw for the early stages of this kind of shift from doing things on paper to actually moving things to a more technologically advanced waste of building. And so it’s been quite a journey, to be honest. I remember starting in construction and we’re still using paper

[00:06:00] heavily, not as you’re printing out drawings and going out to site and have a look at the drawing that print it with you, but actually drawing it in itself, you see as an engineer would actually sketch by hand and hand them over to the guys on site to put something together. So madness really when you think back about it. But anyway, that happened. So that was a starting point I think, and it took quite a few years to start seeing some

[00:06:30] progress being made, to be honest. And I think one of the key things was when technology became a bit more powerful and a bit more focused on fixing the problems that the construction industry had,

Heath Gascoigne (06:45):

Specific

Felipe Manzatucci (06:47):

Very specific software vendors and software providers. Autodesk for example, they were the early creators of software that was specifically

[00:07:00] designed to support engineering and construction. So once that took place, the adoption moved on quite rapidly and we saw something created, something was born that today we call bim building information modeling

Heath Gascoigne (07:18):

Bim. And

Felipe Manzatucci (07:21):

It’s basically what we call the golden thread of data and information. So it basically allows for an early stages

[00:07:30] of design by an engineer or an architect to sit in distal kind of vehicle and a distal thing. And as the project evolves, as the design evolves, that thing evolves with it. So it becomes, it’s a model, it’s a 3D model and effect. It’s a data model that represents graphically what the building will be or what the highway

Heath Gascoigne (07:56):

Will be. So a high level outline straw man of the cons. [00:08:00] Yes,

Felipe Manzatucci (08:00):

Yes. And it begins as a skeleton and then with time it gets filled in with more data, more information that gets passed along in the journey of the lifecycle of a project, for

Heath Gascoigne (08:11):

Example.

Felipe Manzatucci (08:13):

So that’s something that really landed very well with the industry we could.

Heath Gascoigne (08:19):

And the mover there was the provider was Odis, you say? Was it odis, the solution or the provider?

Felipe Manzatucci (08:28):

Yeah. Well there’s many, one

[00:08:30] of many. I’m just giving one as an example, but Autodesk is the one that, AutoCAD was a very powerful tool back in the

Heath Gascoigne (08:37):

Days. Oh yes, I know.

Felipe Manzatucci (08:38):

And is what we all jumped important on that we learned the trade of the new trade of digitizing design and engineering through AutoCAD, I suppose privileged enough to work in an organization that it was global. So we had access to all this technology from the word go, still go [00:09:00] to SMEs in construction. And I still see them drawing by hand. I still see them using very, very basic level of Autodesk tools or

Heath Gascoigne (09:11):

Ca

Felipe Manzatucci (09:12):

Tools. So although I’m saying that 10 years ago this happened, you can see how slow the uptake has been in the industry, even more so with small companies, the SMEs.

(09:29):

So

[00:09:30] that was kind of really good. I would say injection of positive approach to digitizing the industry. And then from there, I think what happened was a bit of what we call the industry 4.0, right? The fourth industrial revolution, which is a whole data digital revolution. And yes, I was saying that industrial revolution really was enabled by two key things.

[00:10:00] One was or is the easier access to technology. So you get a lot more tools that are readily available to be adopted and thrown into projects that going to make things faster, better, more efficient, but also access to the skills, access to

Heath Gascoigne (10:17):

People,

Felipe Manzatucci (10:18):

Employees who actually understand how to use these tools and how to adopt them for their projects. So that combined enable that kind of digital approach [00:10:30] to construction.

Heath Gascoigne (10:32):

That’s fun. And

Felipe Manzatucci (10:32):

From the background you can see a lot more tools being deployed, a lot more tools coming to market, A lot of them actually designed by engineers and by construction experts who will partner up with software developers

Heath Gascoigne (10:48):

To create this solution. So the advantage there for the industry is instead of getting vendors who are, I’ve had it in the business architecture industry [00:11:00] where they’ve taken a tool from another industry and basically just put a cover out the front and essentially it’s still the same tool for another purpose, but they have now marketed it and people, they’ve slapped an expensive price tag on it and said, well, it’s expensive and therefore it must be good. No, but the benefit if you had the actual engineers from the market, from the industry have created it. That’s amazing.

Felipe Manzatucci (11:28):

And it’s great and it’s great. And I

[00:11:30] think the industry, through government support investment in innovation, r and d and so on, it really has helped to actually encourage engineers, encourage people who understand construction to go away and develop tools and digital solutions that will actually fix the problems that we have to begin with. And that’s great to see. That’s really good to see from the back of that, we’ve seen now software that supports project management, [00:12:00] streamlining tasks, making communications, more greater visibility as to how projects are managed. Also, you’ve seen drones actually being adopted a lot more in the industry. And that’s great because it just makes things a lot easier and safer. Even in terms of surveying, for example, large expenses of a terrain, the internet of things is also something that really is happening a lot in the industry and it’s taking a lot [00:12:30] of importance really specifically when it comes to smart buildings. So you can imagine to really understand how buildings operate, how they work, are they too hot, are they too cold? Are they being utilized efficiently? You can put all sorts of sensors in these assets and really get to understand are they performing? Can we get more out of these buildings? Can we reduce service charges for example? So that’s another area

[00:13:00] where the industry really is picking up on things.

Heath Gascoigne (13:03):

So it could almost be a competitive advantage if they got a good handle on, like you were just saying, efficiency of promoting one construction and usage.

Felipe Manzatucci (13:14):

Absolutely. Right. Absolutely right. And we see this a lot and it definitely is a competitive advantage if you’ve got this skills and the capability to provide these solutions to your customer, the customer

[00:13:30] will prefer you as a contractor or as a tion professional. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Heath Gascoigne (13:38):

Sorry, how does it work then for competitiveness? Is it a big market? Is it a tight market? If you’ve got a competition for technology and skills or people, then I would imagine there’s a bit of headhunting possibly within the industry of going, well, they’ve got good people, good talent, let’s see if we can encourage them to maybe come over to us.

Felipe Manzatucci (14:00):

[00:14:00] But here, I think you maybe comparing this to other industries that move a lot faster.

Heath Gascoigne (14:06):

Okay.

Felipe Manzatucci (14:08):

What you just described there is either just beginning to happen now or it will be happening very soon. So slowly, slowly, construction industry has learned the advantages of being digital, of using data, of really getting

[00:14:30] to grip with capturing, storing and using data for insights. That’s happened over a period of 10 years,

Heath Gascoigne (14:38):

10 years

Felipe Manzatucci (14:39):

Now. We’re at that stage of opportunity where these people we’re talking about very, very clever, very skillful individuals who are getting the startups going on, getting the right finding in place to develop these solutions, these tools for the rest of the industry to use. And for

[00:15:00] them obviously to make it back. But that is happening now. So that competitiveness in terms of who’s got the latest capture, who’s got the latest tools, who’s got the latest, who’s got the skills to make it happen,

Heath Gascoigne (15:13):

The capabilities. I think

Felipe Manzatucci (15:15):

That to be honest,

Heath Gascoigne (15:17):

So we’re just seeing now.

Felipe Manzatucci (15:18):

Yeah, yeah. Because in the industry, we are still struggl to find brick layers, electricians.

Heath Gascoigne (15:26):

Wow,

Felipe Manzatucci (15:26):

Plasterers. That really is where

[00:15:30] the primary concern remains for a construction company.

Heath Gascoigne (15:35):

Okay? Yep. The fundamentals.

Felipe Manzatucci (15:38):

Yeah, fundamentals absolutely here. Absolutely such low margins, you can’t afford to get it run. You can’t afford to run late because you’re putting your business at risk. So the whole digital effort is currently being seen a secondary.

Heath Gascoigne (15:55):

Okay. Oh, okay.

Felipe Manzatucci (15:57):

And that was understandable. [00:16:00] It’s one of those things that I despair personally when I see organizations not taking that leap of faith and really going full on with a cohesive investment, a risk managed investment to adopting tools and digitizing their businesses because not doing so is actually having a short term approach to your business, having a short term view of your business, [00:16:30] oh, well I need to win this job. I need to deliver this project because otherwise we would not survive for another two years. Well that’s short term. Think about the investment that you could make you actually making your operations and business better by digitizing your processes. And then you’re looking at 5G plan, let alone two years.

Heath Gascoigne (16:50):

Yeah. Okay. So alright,

Felipe Manzatucci (16:53):

I’m moving there a little bit as to what I want to discuss later about what’s not going so well. But going back

[00:17:00] to what I can see construction industry doing currently that is working and they kind of taking that move into digital is again the adoption of tools, analytics. Absolutely. Things are off the shelf. Nothing doesn’t have to be that clever things off the shelf. Pick them up, adopt them in your business and it helps you. So data analytics, procurement platforms, VR and

[00:17:30] AR solutions, for example, virtual reality

Heath Gascoigne (17:33):

Vr. So

Felipe Manzatucci (17:35):

There’s a lot of things there. I could just in a basket say, there you go, here does everything. They’re doing correctly. But then that in itself is a problem here because once the adoption exists, whilst the adoption is there from project teams, the adoption of these tools happens to be in isolation from each other.

Heath Gascoigne (18:00):

[00:18:00] So

Felipe Manzatucci (18:01):

There isn’t

Heath Gascoigne (18:01):

And is a holistic across,

Felipe Manzatucci (18:04):

There’s not holistic adoption of specific goals. This is down to each individual preference really. Construction projects are very well driven by project directors. Project directors hold the very, very important role to play in delivering projects and project directors, they’ll have a preference on what tools they want to use

Heath Gascoigne (18:29):

Their own

[00:18:30] preference

Felipe Manzatucci (18:32):

Because to personal preference. Personal preference, because I used in my previous project, I’m going to use it in my next project or because I know they, God that sells me the software I’m going to keep on using it. But then in the same company, a project director in a different project, pretty similar projects. The other project is using a different tool. And those two tools are not connected. They’re not speaking to each other, [00:19:00] they work in isolation, they’ve got different data sets, and yet they collecting the same data. So what you end up here is that by selecting tools in isolation from each other, you end up in this situation where it’s an uncoordinated investment. So you are actually paying twice tools, you’re paying the cost of those licenses for 3, 4, 5 different pieces of software that do exactly the same job where you’re paying five different licenses,

[00:19:30] five different vendors

Heath Gascoigne (19:32):

Five times

Felipe Manzatucci (19:32):

Instead just one an enterprise agreement. So investment is not giving you the ROI and that’s what the board sees. That’s what the C ffo is going to look into and go, well hang on, we’re spending so much in technology, I’m not getting the return RO why I was expecting, but it’s because you’re spending so much in technology, you shouldn’t have to, right? If you were to have

[00:20:00] an overall umbrella of, or an overall

Heath Gascoigne (20:03):

Strategy approach,

Felipe Manzatucci (20:05):

An ecosystem of digital tool,

Heath Gascoigne (20:10):

The ecosystem holistic view.

Felipe Manzatucci (20:12):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. An ecosystem of digital tools and that’s what is not in place. And then it comes to me, the biggest problem of having this kind of approach to separate and coordinated systems, siloed

[00:20:30] data that it makes, it gives me eggs, all my body to see so many different data sets all over the business, all over the ion, different data sets,

Heath Gascoigne (20:45):

Not a single

Felipe Manzatucci (20:45):

Source, all of them into the same thing, but they all relate to the same thing, but they tell you different value.

Heath Gascoigne (20:53):

Oh my goodness.

Felipe Manzatucci (20:54):

An example. So when I was back in, I used to work for a tier one contractor,

[00:21:00] global business, and everyone actually stopped the cfo and I said, well, hang on, can we just go through how you gain information? How do you get data? How do you get the knowledge that the business is performing well, right? So say for example, how do you know the valuation? At the end of every month, you carry out evaluation to see how much work you’ve completed so that you can invoice the customer. So I said, how do you know the valuation at

[00:21:30] the end of each month for every project? Oh, well I get information from the project director, then I get information from the commercial director, then I get information from his finance director. And I said, okay, so you get three or four different numbers and please tell me they all say the same thing. He says, no, they never coincide. They’re never the same number. Think about that for a second, right? So

[00:22:00] we are not now talking about projects that are similar or projects are next to each other or projects that belong to the same sector. No, no, we’re talking about the same project.

Heath Gascoigne (22:08):

Same project,

Felipe Manzatucci (22:10):

The same team, right? Yeah.

Heath Gascoigne (22:12):

And they got three different versions.

Felipe Manzatucci (22:14):

It is completely different because you’re using different tools here because it isn’t a coordinated approach to this digital ecosystem that you can actually take advantage of. So in summary, yes, [00:22:30] the industry has woken up to the greatness of digital and data, the value that it brings, but they’re not doing it well,

Heath Gascoigne (22:43):

Right? Okay. Not doing it

Felipe Manzatucci (22:45):

Well. They’re not doing it in a way that can actually exploit it or scale it up. Okay? It remains project driven, it remains in isolation and it does not provide that kind of greater visibility

[00:23:00] of how business performs.

Heath Gascoigne (23:01):

Okay?

Heath Gascoigne (23:09):

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(24:01):

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Heath Gascoigne (25:30):

[00:25:30] Alright, so there are summary. The industry has really picked it up. The digital banner, Hannah, or what we say, you’re going to go into the Olympics and you’ve got the, what do you call it? I dunno, a banner, torch. Torch. The torch. They’ve got the digital torch. And so they’ve been running for 2010, 15 years and it’s a slow burner, but

[00:26:00] they’re in on it. But they’re doing it in isolation, even on, they’re saying just on the same project. And it’s coming down to, I’ve seen it myself, guys that have come onto to projects and they’ve used the tool at another place and go, well, it worked well there, although it worked well there. It was a slightly different project, different context. It’s not like an easy use. This current project here with the government here, they want to copy and paste what’s done in London. They

[00:26:30] say, wait, the funding model of the business you want to copy is fundamentally different to this model. So it’s not a copy and paste. So that itself has issues. All right, so the industry, they’ve got the bug if you say they’ve seen the magic. Yeah,

Felipe Manzatucci (26:49):

Absolutely.

Heath Gascoigne (26:50):

Yeah. But they’re doing it in isolation. So there’s a bit of, so your words there, it’s not holistic, it’s not scalable and it’s missing

[00:27:00] a few things. So that’s probably going to bring us onto our second point. So first point, what the industry is doing well, what the lessons are learned, where the opportunities or lessons are. So we covered that. Our second point would lead us probably onto now what’s working in the industry or not working. I’m sure you’ve got an approach that you follow when you go into these projects here and to say, Hey, so what is that approach that you follow? Do you have an approach? And then what is

Felipe Manzatucci (27:26):

It? Yeah, absolutely. It is a very simplistic model that I

[00:27:30] use if there isn’t this cumbersome, difficult, Oxford level of intelligence in there. It’s very simple. And I think the simpler, it’s the better

Heath Gascoigne (27:44):

Simplicity.

Felipe Manzatucci (27:45):

And so my approach is very simple. I always go into a business, the first question I ask is, where are you at now? Where are you at now? How do you operate? Show me how you run an invoice. Show me how you buy

[00:28:00] a concrete, show me how you proof delivery of equipment or labor on a project site. Show me how you do that. Do you fill in a form? Do you make a phone call? Do you tap it into your own software? Something like that. Show me how you work, right? Lemme experience that. Let me sit down with your procurement director for a couple of days and really see how things work. So that’s the very first thing I do is really understand where are they at today?

[00:28:30] How do they operate? And then I ask you right questions, I think I say, where do you want to be? Because for you to have called me, for you to have asked me to come here and have a look is because you already know there is an improvement that you can make to your business. Otherwise you wouldn’t call me otherwise I wouldn’t be in an office in a meeting with you. So where do you want to be? What are the areas that you have committed to deliver

[00:29:00] to your shareholders or any stakeholders that you are committed to? It could be local government or it could be private equity fund. So where do you want to be

(29:13):

And what areas you want to work on? And having absolute clarity of those two areas to me is absolutely key. Okay. And the third point that we put together is how are we going to go from where you are today to where you

[00:29:30] want to be tomorrow? And I echo that roadmap. The

Heath Gascoigne (29:33):

Roadmap. So

Felipe Manzatucci (29:34):

We put together a roadmap of what are we going to focus on, an actual list of items that we can focus on to move from a to that is that simple here, there isn’t much more than that. Now the thing is, well the thing is moving from A to B or moving from current stakes to future state. What I encourage, and I do like your concept

[00:30:00] of business transformation, digital transformation is the same thing. Absolutely. You’re transforming the business. And I use change management principles to support that transformation.

Heath Gascoigne (30:12):

But

Felipe Manzatucci (30:13):

Absolutely a hundred percent that transformation can be enhanced by the adoption of technology.

Heath Gascoigne (30:19):

Absolutely. Absolutely. If

Felipe Manzatucci (30:21):

You bring in technology, in my goodness, you are flying, you become an absolute leading competitor in your area or sector, whatever

[00:30:30] you get up to. And that’s the opportunity that I love dropping to the CEOs, the boards, the project directors, the opportunity of just do it. Just really throw a Do this. Yes, be user centric. Yes, be customer centric, but my goodness also be data centric because we are all rich with data, right? We data,

Heath Gascoigne (31:00):

[00:31:00] I was just speaking about it.

Felipe Manzatucci (31:05):

Don’t just keep it aside. Don’t ignore it. Make use of it. Make use of your resources and data. One of the most valuable resources that an organization could have. So let’s not ignore it. We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the skills, let’s make the most of that data to improve the business. But that is my approach. Now, I can go make it more complicated now here by telling you about,

[00:31:30] my skeleton is always a digital operating model. So I, I design, build, and implement digital operating models that are specifically designed for that organization, for their context, for their size, for their area of expertise that will deliver what they want to achieve in their future state. So we’re not going to put together an operating model that’s going to increase revenue when what

[00:32:00] they actually focus on is reducing carbon, for example. So it has to be contextualized, it has to be

Heath Gascoigne (32:07):

Context

Felipe Manzatucci (32:09):

Specific because you cannot pick an operating model of the shelf and apply it you, it can be a framework. It can be like ho hoba that you have your own framework of approach on how to transform. It doesn’t mean it’s going to, just because you use the same framework,

[00:32:30] it doesn’t mean that they’re all going to end up with the same solution.

Heath Gascoigne (32:33):

Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Felipe Manzatucci (32:36):

Quote

Heath Gascoigne (32:37):

A few of these things. Yeah,

Felipe Manzatucci (32:39):

Exactly. Exactly. So it’s having that framework approach really that, and there’s a number of stages. They’ve got seven stages to take you through concept definition or the way to continuous improvement. So there’s a number of steps that we take, but again, the bespokely delivered for each organization. So there isn’t one

[00:33:00] size fits all.

Heath Gascoigne (33:00):

Yep, that is true. Yep. I agree on that.

Felipe Manzatucci (33:03):

No, no, sorry. Absolutely.

Heath Gascoigne (33:05):

Absolutely. Yeah. So I like what you’re saying there, the digital operating model that is, I think you can codify that one. The digital operating model, maybe the digital operating model for construction. That is the Philippe approach there. I think you kind of have to trademark that one. There is

Felipe Manzatucci (33:27):

That there is that? Absolutely.

Heath Gascoigne (33:29):

Absolutely.

[00:33:30] I think there’s a book coming just quietly. Alright, so we’ll keep talking on that one. I like it. So I like how you said from the beginning it’s kiss, right? Keep it simple. So keep it simple. Simon. I think what I’ve seen, and I think for you to be a veteran of the many years, many projects, global projects, is that, and even Richard Branson talks about it quoted often around about complexity. Complexity is the enemy, any fool. I think his words are that any

[00:34:00] fool can make something complex. It takes a genius to make it simple. And this is the thing, if we got so much more data, more data, the tendency there is to go more information, more complex as in no, the key is to strip it back to do what the minimum you can do to keep it simple. So I congratulate you on that one.

(34:20):

That is key. And of course when you’re talking construction and if it’s a multi-story building or maybe multi-site construction and you have a lot of stakeholders

[00:34:30] in as saying the brick layers, plumbers, et cetera, you’ve got thousands of stakeholders involved in these projects, big, big budgets multiple year. So they’re highly complex. And then you talk about the risk adverse and the margins are small, so there is no room for error. And so technology, as you said, is an enabler. And if they can get that right, the competitive advantage is there. The challenge which we were saying [00:35:00] earlier is that because of nature of the industry, the size of investments and the risk, the margins are small, the risk aversion is high. And so they are approved from your perspective, they’re looking for, like you said earlier, they’re like laggards into technology. They’re waiting for the early adopters to try it out. So they can go what? Let those guys try it out first and if they get it right, we will tag a right? Yeah,

[00:35:30] yeah. Okay. So then they’re the laggards and say, okay, now let’s tried and test it. We want to try some of it, but we’re still going to tip our toes in the water and not get too deep straight away. And then they’ll go to the project director, the finance director, and they go, well, what are you doing? What did you do last time? Let’s just use that. Okay, that’s

Felipe Manzatucci (35:51):

Right. That’s right. Absolutely. I think I want to touch on that point you just mentioned the complexity. There are many levels to complexity

[00:36:00] and I think you are right. I want to pick on this point specifically, technology can be complex. Let’s not ignore that. All the way from network systems now with AI and so on. If you are not native to the digital era, for example, which I have to select construction industry, and today still most of the workforce

[00:36:30] is above 40. So we are not that truly native to digital tools. So it will be complex to understand what these youngsters are talking about. And it can be daunting, it can be scary to actually be the CEO of a business and having to accept or having to listen to say a consultant,

[00:37:00] one of the big four for example. And they come down bags, bags, bags full of terminology that I wonder if they actually even, they know what it means.

(37:13):

They just throw this terminology there and they tell you that unless you do this, you’re going to be out of business. So you must be quite daunting for that CEO to think, whoa, whoa. Not only I don’t understand what they’re talking about, but I actually have to go with it

[00:37:30] because if I don’t, they just told me I’m going to be out. So something that I really, really focus on when I speak to decision makers is to give them peace of mind that just because they don’t understand the lingo, it doesn’t mean that they cannot make decisions that are sound for the business. All they need is a translator. They need someone who understands the technology but also understands their business. They understand construction

Heath Gascoigne (38:00):

[00:38:00] A conduent,

Felipe Manzatucci (38:03):

Right? That’s right. That’s why because the transformation has to be owned by the business. It can be owned by external fact an external party. So if you understand the business, you understand how they operate and you can translate that technology for them, then you remove that complexity and you’re not making technology simpler. You’re just making the adoption of technology

[00:38:30] simpler because now you understand how far you can take it. You understand how scalable a solution can be. You understand how to set up your systems to focus on that transition from where you are today to where you want to be.

Heath Gascoigne (38:45):

The understanding

Felipe Manzatucci (38:48):

Absolutely. What it does here is that it removes that reluctancy from organizations. It is one of the three areas I think have are

[00:39:00] huge barriers to transformation. One of them is reluctancy, the other one is lack of digital model. And the other one is inconsistent value of data across the business. But we’ll do with those another day. But reluctancy is one of the three key barriers to me. And it’s the complexity of technology or not understanding what technology can do for you, not understanding the benefit that it brings. And it’s the fact that it’s also seen as a disrupting process.

Heath Gascoigne (39:29):

It’s

Felipe Manzatucci (39:29):

Going [00:39:30] to disrupt my projects, it’s going to disrupt my workforce that is already happy bringing pieces of paper and take them to the project side.

Heath Gascoigne (39:39):

Don’t see it as enabler. They see as a disruptor.

Felipe Manzatucci (39:43):

Disruptor. Exactly. So because no one’s there to explain it to them because no one’s there to support them. They do not take the leap of faith. They’re reluctant.

Heath Gascoigne (39:52):

So they They want some trusted hands, right,

Felipe Manzatucci (39:58):

Exactly. And this is why we

[00:40:00] come in right here. This is why you and I exist. Because we go to them and say, look, I understand construction. I’m a charter engineer and I been here for 15 years. I understand every single part of construction, but I also understand technology. So let me be your helping hand. Let me be your right hand man that can actually take you navigate through this craziness of data and systems and networks. And that’s the role we play and that’s role we choose to play, which someone has to because

[00:40:30] otherwise we do not see progress in our industries.

Heath Gascoigne (40:33):

Oh yeah. Bang on. Yes. I talked about this in my talk in South Africa is around, I see the title of the speech was With great power becomes great responsibility. And as you were just saying there, if we are the trusted hands, they’re helping guide through current state to future state. And these projects continue to, in this industry, 70% failure rate. One, the organisation doesn’t get the

[00:41:00] return at wants, the customers don’t get the return they want. Innovation doesn’t happen, the industry suffers. Then ultimately the country suffers. And so where’d it all come from the guys running projects? It’s like there is a systematic systems thinking, systems linking cause and effect relationship. Yeah,

Felipe Manzatucci (41:19):

Yeah, absolutely. And on that point actually cause an effect, I really want to make it clear that there is a point to digitizing your business. There [00:41:30] is a point to having a digital operating model in your business. And that point is what I call business intelligence. So what I mean with that is that there is a consequence from not having those three things I mentioned earlier, not having a digital operating model, being reluctant and not having consistent value of data across a business. The consequence is that you do not have business intelligence and that means you do not have

[00:42:00] data or you do not have

Heath Gascoigne (42:03):

Insights,

Felipe Manzatucci (42:03):

The ability to access data to tell you how your business is performing, to tell you where your business is not performing and to tell you what you could do about it. Right? If you don’t have that visibility, if you don’t have the intelligence about your own business, how could you possibly make any changes here? It’s impossible.

Heath Gascoigne (42:25):

Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. You are wasting time,

Felipe Manzatucci (42:28):

Right? Or you’re just

[00:42:30] kind of relying on people’s opinions. Well my opinion is I we to change the color of the background on your screen white. What is my opinion? Because I don’t like yellow. I like green, right? Well where’s the data to tell you that actually green is more attractive, gives people’s attention and green is actually quite boring. Depressing. So that’s why you don’t have green and that decision making when it’s based on intelligence

[00:43:00] and intelligence being fueled by data

Heath Gascoigne (43:03):

On a digital operating model.

Felipe Manzatucci (43:06):

Exactly. So that business intelligence is allowing you to make better decisions on your business. So now all of a sudden, if you look at construction for example, low margin have already set back prone to accidents. We keep on entering people on site, day in, day out, a lot of waste, which means high carbon.

[00:43:30] So we are not getting to net zero and very low productivity because we keep getting it wrong because we don’t have visibility to the things that we are doing. So if we don’t have that intelligence to make better decisions that eradicate those areas I just mentioned,

Heath Gascoigne (43:50):

How

Felipe Manzatucci (43:50):

Do you possibly improve your business? How do you possibly hope?

Heath Gascoigne (43:54):

We cannot

Felipe Manzatucci (43:55):

Aim to improve the performance or the profitability of your

[00:44:00] business. It is an impossibility. It’s an impossibility. So I spent a lot of time speaking to c-suite boards, decision makers, really making ’em understand that you’re not doing this for the sake of it. You’re not setting up this tooling technology and access to data because it’s the right thing to do. Well it is, but not for the sake of it. Right? You’re doing it because the key targets of a construction organization are going to be

[00:44:30] improved by having that intelligence, by having access to the data that is delivered through a digital operating model.

Heath Gascoigne (44:38):

Fantastic. Man, there’s gold. So I want to summarize a few things there. There’s a lot there to take in. So the starting point was the complexity. And from that complexity there came a lot of things, right? And I think in summary is that without having your digital focus,

[00:45:00] the digital operating model, you’re lacking that intelligence from the data that they already have. It’s like, it’s not that they don’t have it, you have it already. Correct. And it’s disparate at the moment. Many sources of truth, even as you said on the same project, looking at it three different ways, three different people looking at this yellow and say they want green or blue or purple. Okay? So yeah, they’re not telling you how it’s performing, what’s bad, what bad performance looks like, nor what to do about it. So you’ve got

[00:45:30] these, we’ll say, industry issues that are always present, the low margins, high injuries, a lot of waste and low productivity.

(45:39):

That’s like the perfect storm for massive transformation. And that’s what I talk about in these transformation projects. The four causes of transformation, failure, lack of business, user involvement, lack of senior leadership, support, changing requirements and incomplete requirements, and what’s all common with each one of these.

[00:46:00] It’s nothing to do with technology, it’s all to do with people. So all these issues here, it’s like, okay, we’ve got low margins, lots of injuries, lots of waste and low productivity. And so it’s clear that if they hit the data, the data would help them immensely. But the challenge isn’t the data, it’s the people’s willingness, correct. To adopt,

Felipe Manzatucci (46:23):

Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Because at no point we have said, oh, the technology is not there

[00:46:30] or the software available is not enough. It doesn’t really manage data very well. At no point we have set that. On the contrary, we have set the technology available, the off the shelf, pick them up, they are ready to go, right? It’s not complicated. You’ve got experts that can start for you. So it’s not the technology the problem, it’s actual the people human side of things.

Heath Gascoigne (46:55):

Yes, the people. Okay. So that’s your approach that you

[00:47:00] follow. And I’m going to challenge you here. I’m going to challenge you publicly because this goes public, it goes public, LinkedIn goes public on YouTube. I think you talked about simple and simplicity and I’m a big believer of that. So my challenge to you is you put that in a book.

(47:20):

I’m telling that’s a challenge. I only challenge either publicly challenged now. So there can be a first version and a second version and a third

[00:47:30] version. But I think that’s gold. I don’t think actually I come from a family in construction. My father’s had his own business up until retiring recently and I’ve been surrounded by it, my grandparents and family all involved around construction, my younger sister, my mother, my older sister, real estate. So we’ve been surrounded by it. My parents have built their house many times. I’ve renovated my house from the ground up. I have slight little idea of CADs and AutoCADs and [00:48:00] dealing with different, so I have a little inclination. I don’t have a lot. Not like you for 20 years in the detail. So I think, and I’ve never seen it and no one’s ever talked about it in my experience and around my family, around the operating model. Definitely not a digital operating model in the construction area. So I reckon there’s a book coming. Alright, so you

Felipe Manzatucci (48:22):

Know what, someone very wise, who’s now becoming a good friend of mine told me [00:48:30] there’s a book in everyone. Serious. You serious? You told me that last week. What? I agree with you, I think it’s important that certain things are documented and replicated where possible improved with time. Absolutely. I fully agree with that. My primary goal, to be honest as a consultant right now, is to

[00:49:00] really support SMEs out there.

Heath Gascoigne (49:02):

SMEs,

Felipe Manzatucci (49:03):

Yeah. The smaller players, construction, I can’t remember the number now. There’s thousands of construction companies in the UK

Heath Gascoigne (49:14):

Building

Felipe Manzatucci (49:14):

A little bit here, a little bit. They’re all trying to do a little things. These companies don’t have access to the big four to given the guidance and support that they need to digitize and begin to form that digital operating model. My

[00:49:30] aim to reach out to these organizations and help them out, offer them a non-complex, very simple approach to digitizing their business, the specific bespoke designed for them, for their context. Okay. That’s my aim. So as you say, if a book is going to help that, I’m going to start writing it.

Heath Gascoigne (49:56):

We are going to catch up out of this. I’ll tell you what. Okay.

[00:50:00] Yes. The SMEs and I do feel for you there. They don’t have access to resources. Definitely some cases don’t have access to the budgets and therefore have access to the talent. Yeah. And that’s the market that you specializing in. We will talk about later about how everyone can get ahold of you and contact details. But for the third question and the third question, having now done this for many years, many decades, the big size transformations, multiyear multi across

[00:50:30] the world. If you could do it all again, what would you do differently?

Felipe Manzatucci (50:33):

Yeah. Well a couple of things definitely. And I divided into personal level and organizational level. A personal level, I would’ve jumped onto the revolution a lot earlier. And I don’t necessarily mean adopting digital tools or adopting solutions. I mean upskilling myself.

(51:00):

[00:51:00] I think I could have jumped on this a lot earlier and be of even more benefit to my organization when I was working for than what I was. So really upskilling really get down to understanding how technology really works, how technology is developed to what use to what purpose. I would’ve done that heath, to be honest. I would’ve actually spent a lot more time increasing

[00:51:30] my digital capability through learning, through experiencing, through throwing myself through scenarios that I wouldn’t think that will be possible because the opportunities were there. But my focus was on, well, as you said before, someone else will do it, someone else will do it. And then I jump on board. And I think that if I was to do it again, I would jump on it a lot earlier.

Heath Gascoigne (51:59):

So that [00:52:00] just stop you there so that there is a strong skill of self-reflection where you can say, had I done it again, I would do differently and these are the things I would do differently. Two say that is all kudos. So what you actually were saying is one, you would stretch yourself and so you would get out of the comfort zone, which is a big thing. That’s a lesson for all of us, including myself. And then so really around personal development skills and knowledge. [00:52:30] And then from that would be the application of, and so bravo, I’ll take my tip hat to you on that one. Okay. And the second one you were about to say.

Felipe Manzatucci (52:38):

Yeah, sorry. And the second one would be from an organizational point of view, because towards the latter years of my career within the tier one contractor, I was in a high level position. So I was able to influence decisions. I was able to direct the business towards a digital [00:53:00]

approach or towards certain targets, certain end goals. And so what would’ve been different is to actually, the way in which I structured the journey to get us there, I would’ve done it differently. So initially, and I started, it was about six, seven years ago, the setup was we will adopt the, that are specific to the problems we have. [00:53:30]

And that adoption of tools in isolation that you have, it was, as I’m saying now was the wrong thing to do. And that’s why I tell people not to do it because I’ve learned from it. I’ve learned from the mistakes, I’ve got the scars,

Heath Gascoigne (53:45):

I’ve got the scars

Felipe Manzatucci (53:46):

Software right, left and center in complete isolation from each other. It does not end well. So I would’ve actually been more structured, a bit more overarching approach as to how are we going to make sure that everything’s

[00:54:00] connected? How are we going to make sure that the data, that golden threat that’s going to run through all the software that we have, our ecosystem, our software portfolio, how are we going to make sure that everyone has access to it and everyone has access to the same data sets, not separate. And that structured approach is the right thing. I would’ve done differently going back. And that’s why I’m now so vocal about this digital operating model because

[00:54:30] from the learning is where I realized that guys don’t make the same mistake as I did.

Heath Gascoigne (54:35):

Yeah. So you’ve got the scars, you’ve got the T-shirt. So the Annette’s found the lessons learned. Yeah, and I’m the same is that you have learned from your experience what works and what doesn’t. But you were saying earlier for the companies, if they were to understand your data, they would know how it was performing and not performing and how to do something about it. And you have been through that journey personally. So now having been lived and now got the T-shirt,

[00:55:00] what good looks like and now you can as I am, and there are others in our positions of going out there and teaching others. Alright. Okay. Alright. Now Philippe, so we’ll wrap it up there. Now guys, so ladies and gentlemen, you want to get ahold of Philippe? I’ll put in the show notes, Philippe’s contact details, email, website, LinkedIn, so you know how to get ahold of them. If you’re an SME in the construction industry and you are suffering from some of those things that we are talking [00:55:30] about that you’ve got lack of visibility or you’ve got your project director, finance director, operational director, all having similar conversations about the same data, but three different outcomes, then you probably got to speak to Philippe. Alright, so Philippe, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m going to stop the recording now. I want to talk to you before we sign off. I say thank you ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Okay, cheers. Bye.