SaaS, DevOps and mobility. None of these models and concepts are new to Autodoc, an ABES associate company that has a portfolio of specialist software for the civil construction market. Founded in 2003, the company currently has seven product lines that make up its portfolio. “Our main product is AutoDoc Projetos, a SaaS for online collaboration and coordination of building projects, which brings all the information that builders and designers need already pre-configured”, informs Ana Cecilia Tobias Ribeiro, Civil Engineer by Poli- USP and CEO of AutoDoc.
Another product in the portfolio is AutoDoc GD4, launched in 2017, a software that is focused on compliance of legal and fiscal documentation of companies that provide services at construction sites and of their respective collaborators, which often can cause labor liability problems for construction companies. “This solution also has our access control system for the construction sites, integrated with GD4, and which uses internet of things as the solution's drive”, explains Ana Cecilia.
Learning and scalability
The executive explains that when she started serving customers via SaaS, this business model was not as well known and widespread. “As we were pioneers with SaaS, in a way we learned hands-on. Despite adopting well-defined and market-based work methodologies, successes and mistakes were our best masters ”, he points out.
Learning has not been lacking throughout the company's trajectory. “We also learned that infrastructure is a very critical part of the business and needs to be very well integrated with the development area. For this reason, we highly value our DevOps area, which has grown in recent years and has reached maturity, providing a lot of support and growth base for our products ”, informs Ana Cecília.
Mobility also generated a learning curve, which started 10 years ago. “When we offer a mobility solution to the customer, it starts to have a kind of life of its own, whose attendance and decision-making behavior for corrections and training no longer behaves like a simple SaaS, as the devices have many differences between them and we deal with the transmission of a large amount of data by equipment, which adds many particular characteristics to this type of application, as well as database and infrastructure needs ”, he ponders.
Regarding the development of software for the civil construction segment, the CEO warns that scaling very technical and focused solutions is always a big challenge, as the viability of a solution is configured in a long curve to achieve good results. “We have noticed that companies that are new to this market often believe that just having a written code is enough to guarantee the good results of their work. In fact, a company, regardless of having the startup label, cannot be linked to just one code. Our market is much more than that. Investments in researching new technologies and developing new products are high ”, he points out.
Economic recovery
Ana Cecília considers that this software segment has suffered a lot in recent years, because the civil construction sector was strongly affected by the country's economic crisis. But, the executive bets that in 2018 there will be an improvement and the adjustment of the Brazilian macroeconomics. "The construction sector has signaled this recovery trend for the next year, and we believe that, by then, companies in the real estate market will have already dealt with one of their biggest problems today: the high inventories of units", he evaluates.
Autodoc currently has a portfolio of approximately 1,200 customers across Brazil, with a greater concentration in the Southeast region. Its portfolio allows it to serve both publicly traded companies as well as medium and small companies. It has clients in Portugal, Spain, Chile and Paraguay, even without having implemented an internationalization project, which is scheduled for 2019.
Discover other products in the Autodoc portfolio
AutoDoc Quality: collaborates with construction companies and developers to control their quality, safety and environmental management system, promoting the automated management of ISO 9000, 18000 and 14000 or PBQP-H (Certification of the Brazilian Habitat Quality and Productivity Program). It is a very practical system, with an excellent cost-benefit, which brings a series of controls, such as non-conformities, training, audits, documents, construction diary, among others.
AutoDoc FVS: allows inspection of the quality of services in works in a very agile and practical way, through mobility, linked to dashboards and reports that help in the management of the work. This system has already been used by more than 2,000 construction sites throughout Brazil, and has a high maturity, also with an excellent cost-benefit ratio for construction companies.
In addition to these products, the company also offers a line for Technical Controls, which include the AutoDoc Green (waste control in construction sites), the Autodoc Cockpit (control of planning goals), the AutoDoc Technological Control of Concrete and the AutoDoc Work Safety Check-List. Other products are intended for the post-construction stage, such as AutoDoc SAT, which manages the technical assistance of the unit delivered by the construction company to residents; and AutoDoc Unit Delivery, which allows the monitoring of the status of completion of the building units until the final delivery.
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