Overview
The "Project Portal" or "Project Hub" is envisioned as a centralized system that streamlines how customers and internal teams request, manage, and track enterprise services such as engineering, estimating, and related project deliverables. This portal will work as a single digital interface that consolidates project intake, file sharing, status tracking, and communication, while integrating with existing internal systems like ESP, Salesforce, and SAP.
The purpose of this research is to understand the current workflows of Simpson's Enterprise Services teams, along with their pain points, and user needs associated with project management processes. Research consists of 30 minute, semi-structured interviews.
This preliminary report includes three interviews. More interviews should be conducted to get deeper insight into the problems internal teams and customers face.
Exec Summary
The interviews reveal strong agreement on the need for a centralized, integrated, and user-friendly project portal that reduces manual effort, streamlines communication, improves scope clarity, supports controlled data access, and can flexibly accommodate different user groups. Fragmentation, manual workflows, and lack of real-time visibility are consistent pain points across departments, reinforcing the value proposition of a unified project hub.
Preliminary Findings
Across the three interviews (Matt Sondgeroth, Kent Fairchild, Alejandro Salazar-Estrada), several common findings emerge regarding the needs, workflows, and challenges related to the envisioned Project Portal/Hub.
1. Fragmented and Inefficient Workflows
All participants describe current workflows as fragmented, involving multiple tools and manual processes that lead to inefficiencies.
- Matt S. notes, "It's just this cluster of man hours that are spent managing the workflow itself that we don't need to be doing. If there's all in one location, like, give me that one stop shop."
- Kent F. describes how project intake and file sharing require moving data between several systems: "we upload them to the k drive, then we upload them to Dropbox, then we upload them to Vietnam. And I'm like, why are we doing all this? It should be going to one place that everybody can access it."
- Alejandro S. affirms the challenge, pointing out that requests go through Enterprise Service Platform but much communication is still managed via email.
2. Need for Centralization and Integration
There is widespread desire for a centralized solution that consolidates project intake, tracking, and communication, as well as integrates or supports other key platforms (e.g., ESP, Salesforce, SAP).
- Matt S. expresses, "I think it's a centralized location that can that can house a customer's request. It can house all of their data... It's it's it's a storage location that can be shared with the customers and ideally all of the trades."
- Alejandro S. emphasizes, "having everybody kinda try to follow a a more standard path" and that centralization would help deliver coherent packages rather than conflicting or overlapping work.
- Both Matt Sondgeroth and Kent Fairchild mention the value and challenges of integrating with major company systems, especially Salesforce, to avoid duplicated effort and improve data flow.
3. Communication and Transparency Challenges
Participants experience pain around disjointed communication, mainly through email, and a lack of automated status updates or transparency into project progress for both internal teams and customers.
- Matt S. states, "the customer is probably still using Outlook to email us a file or use that Smartsheet form... we're then somehow getting it into ESP."
- Kent F. highlights, "Every keystroke that we can remove...those little things matter, including the uploading of the plans," underlining wasted time on unnecessary manual communication.
- There is consensus that the portal should provide clear, real-time updates to reduce "back-and-forth" and uncertainty for contractors and customers.
4. Permissions, Security, and Controlled Visibility
A commonly mentioned need is balancing information sharing with appropriate permission controls to protect sensitive data while increasing access and visibility for relevant stakeholders.
- Kent F. explicitly says, "The ability to share information with customers and contractors, but then...Also hide information from customers and contractors."
- Alejandro S. describes internal vs. external visibility around project scope and deliverables and the challenge of managing who sees what.
5. Scope Clarity and Standardization
Challenges with clearly defining and communicating project scope—both internally between teams and externally with customers—come up multiple times.
- Alejandro S. identifies scope clarity as a "main challenge...even internally and externally, some people don't completely understand where Simpson stands."
- Standardizing processes and improving handoffs between different service teams are viewed as important improvements.
6. Automation and Reduction of Manual Overhead
There is interest in automating routine, repetitive tasks to save time and reduce errors—especially in data entry, project tracking, and billing.
- Matt S. discusses "the ability to communicate expectations based off of current workload" and value of alerts and proactive reporting.
- Several interviewees note the inefficiency of manual billing workflows and the labor wasted in replicating data across systems.
7. Varying User Adoption and Technical Comfort Levels
Interviewees recognize that customers and regional branches vary in their digital readiness and openness to new tools, so the platform must accommodate different levels of technical proficiency and preferences.
- Matt S. states, "Builder customers tend to be 'white collar,' working behind laptops and might more easily adopt a digital portal. Conversely, LBM customers...might resist using a new web-based system."
- Kent F. shares concerns over usability friction for contractors and the importance of making sign-up and usage as streamlined as possible.