Norconsult master business agility with no-code

A platform supporting business agility

While the ERP system was not suited for supporting the company’s high standards for project management, it still served its purpose for corporate planning and financials. Further, purchasing and customizing a new ERP system was considered too risky and too expensive, with the potential to disrupt the ongoing business. As a result, Norconsult decided to search for complementary software to extend the capabilities of their ERP system and automate and centralize manual processes.

After hearing about Genus, Norconsult decided to see if no-code could help them move forward. The platform promised the flexibility and agility they were looking for to support the continuous evolution of their business processes. In addition, it supported rapid and iterative development, and it was recognized as a cost-effective option. Finally, it provided the necessary capabilities to integrate with Norconsult’s existing IT landscape.

As a first step, Genus was put to the test in the financial department in 2000 and was used to support a new billing and invoicing process. Among other things, the solution supported project managers by enabling them to view and sign off worked hours in Genus, a process that drastically reduced the number of invoices that had to be altered after being sent to the customer. Several reports were also implemented, one of which made it possible to preview an invoice before being posted to the ERP system. This new process support was essential for Norconsult, and the solution alone reduced the time to receive payments by several months and effectively increased Norconsult’s earning capacity. The rapid implementation and efficiency of the platform, proven in this project, laid the foundation for using Genus in other areas of the organization lacking software support.

In the beginning, Genus was primarily used to solve financial issues and for reporting needs. However, as the company grew the priorities changed. Gradually, the use of Genus shifted to other core business areas needing support. One of the key challenges Norconsult faced in the mid-2000s was the need for a more centralized and effective process for project management and administration.

Thus, the next major project with Genus was to create a unified and improved solution for managing new project enrollment. This was a critical solution, as each department had its own way of creating, structuring, and saving data. Further, the existing process involved manual and time-consuming routines for re-entering the data into the ERP system for financial purposes. In addition, the ERP software was rigid and lacked the possibility to modify the underlying data structure, which was a prerequisite to enable a company-wide standard.

The solution for project enrollment was developed in Genus through agile and iterative implementation and testing and involved IT, the financial department, and quality management. The nature of no-code and Genus allowed for rapid development, as well as the ability to quickly turn around and change course if needed. The result was a new project enrollment solution that centralized data management and administration, enriched the data structure with important information, and removed manual processes for entering data into the ERP software.

Through the following years, Genus was the “platform of choice” to improve efficiency and solve challenges, always using an incremental and agile approach. For instance, the acquisitions of companies added to the complexity of the organization and required modifications to the support provided by the software. One such modification came from the acquisition of a valuation surveyor company. The first version of the project enrollment solution became too time-consuming for the types of short-term projects conducted by this company, where a project often lasted less than two hours. With the first version of the solution targeted toward large-scale projects, Norconsult decided to expand the solution with a lightweight version. This new version was based on the same data structure but included more predefined fields and hid information irrelevant for this type of project and user. The result was a significant reduction in complexity and time spent on registration.

The most recent use of Genus in Norconsult is a solution for time capture. As with other processes, the need for new software was based on the ambition to automate and improve processes, especially business-critical processes that impacted all employees on a daily basis. During the vendor evaluation, off-the-shelf solutions were considered and tried out. However, due to the complexity of the projects in Norconsult, as well as the need to adhere to well-established processes, the off-the-shelf solutions were rejected. The solution was tailor-made with Genus and fully integrated with the financial core system, meeting all the requirements Norconsult had for its time capture application.

The time capture solution was set in production for 3 000 users simultaneously in September 2020. Norconsult sees the project as a great success, and although the solution is in production, the flexibility of Genus allows Norconsult to gather feedback and make iterative changes to continuously enhance the solution and user experience.