Property development has many characteristics in common with both manufacture and service industries. As in manufacturing, there are physical products produced that often have high cost, size, and complexity. On the other hand, construction is like the service industry for the reason that it does not accumulate a large amount of capital like manufacturing industries.
A recent trend in the industry is that construction companies do not only see themselves as producers of products (i.e. houses, bridges etc.), but as providers of the service related to the product’s whole life cycle.
The property development sector in India looks set to grow at steadily accelerating growth rates in the next five years. The future success of the regional leaders will depend on their ability to escape their fluctuations in the national economy and at the same time maintaining their reputation for high quality.
Key Challenges facing the Industry
The property development industry in India is unstructured, fragmented and characterized by numerous small developers, hoping to ride the wave of current growth in the sector.
Government has decided to open up the infrastructure sector – on one hand that means immense opportunities for everyone, but also stiff competition that threatens to knock out the unfit from the race (since land acquisition costs are so high, that companies with bad project management skills can end up either delivering late / shoddy, thereby tarnishing their reputation and foregoing the huge opportunities).
Further, the number of acquisitions and mergers that have been taking place would also change the equation in the long run.
The Key USP of successful companies therefore are short lead times, and tight project management
ECS has helped property developers build competitive edge at the market place by improving its operational efficiencies.
ECS has helped companies address the following operational challenges:
How to become the highest quality provider and lowest cost manufacturer?
How to improve processes that have a high dependence on business partners/outsourced agencies?
How to institutionalize the culture of Quality and Continuous Improvement, with the right attitudes and skills?
Part of the value chain we participate in
Building ‘Voice of Customer’ in Product Design processes
Improving Project Management and site supervision processes for timely and first-time right quality execution
Assuring ‘zero defect’ quality with reduced rework and wastages
Creating customer delight in all customer interfacing ‘moments of truth’ processes like Sales, Modification requests, Hand-over and Complaint resolution
Developing advanced project costing and cost control systems
Ensuring ‘full value sourcing’ in Procurement and Contractor Management
Improving collections and administration processes
Building people capability, technically & managerially, and creating an environment of empowerment along with a high performance culture
ECS helped a leading Property Developer to crash lead time and streamline processes.
A leading residential and commercial property developer was embarking on ambitious plans to significantly increase its local and regional presence. With the anticipated growth of the firm, there was a need to develop robust systems & processes and build cost & timeline advantage.
ECS was called upon to establish new standards in their key business processes, and help in an organizational transformation initiative where Quality, Customer satisfaction and Cost Reduction become a part of a continuous improvement culture.
The tangible benefits achieved:
Reduction in Project Delivery time (identification of land to handing over) by 50 – 60%
Accurate budget estimation leading to cost variance being curtailed to 3.5%
Speedy resolution of complaints
Besides introducing a unique process of measurement to reduce continuous variability, our project yielded several intangible, yet significant, benefits:
Process Quality Information System (PQIS) fact-based process management in place of “thumb rules” and “gut feels”
An end-to-end process focus amongst all the functions
A culture of continuous improvement
Trained internal change agents to carry forward the process
