Successful digital transformation in the construction and building services sector

Data, security and connectivity

In 2012, Klimaatgarant started to provide guarantees on the indoor climate and consumption, provided that the shell of the home and the equipment - including the heat pump - meet certain requirements. The firm was already offering heat pumps on lease. To issue a performance guarantee, it had to measure the performance of each individual unit continuously and transmit and process the data. This is just one example of digitalisation in the field in which Itho Daalderop operates. The company has developed the Spider, a smart thermostat that allows customers to divide their house into indoor climate zones that they can control separately. Itho Daalderop has also responded to customers’ wish to control units remotely or monitor consumption and is developing secure and stable add-ons to the internet of things.

As the firm raced to keep up with the rapid rise of digitalisation and to find answers to data, security and connectivity issues, things sometimes went wrong. Eddes: "Success depends on the right partners. A foreign company that the firm had hired to do programming started charging huge fees for modifications. Now we only work with firms that we know and trust."

BXT and d.quarks

Danny Gerritsen introduced the firm to the BXT philosohy, which PwC uses to examine digital transformation from three vantage points: Business, eXperience and Technology. "Businesses need to look at all three of these elements to ensure a successful transformation. In the case of the Spider-thermostat, the technology was great but the business case probably wasn’t not strong enough. Or maybe it fell short in terms of customer experience, whether end consumer or building services engineer. Good technology alone is not enough."

Gerritsen and his PwC colleagues started by organising a workshop with the firm’s management to scrutinise its business strategy. "Successful digital transformations require a driving force from the management", says Gerritsen. "The board members were all very keen to get to work. That told me that this was an innovative, enterprising company. The PwC d.quarks model, that surveys which skills an organisation needs to achieve a certain level of digital transformation, helped them to identify which digital building blocks Itho Daalderop needed to improve."

"Interviews with staff helped us identify the skills that required attention", explains Gerritsen. "We then fleshed out these skills specifically for Itho Daalderop, in consultation with the management. The result is a digital roadmap that allows the firm to move forward."

In-house development or outsourced

Do you develop products in-house or outsource the work to partners? It’s a typical dilemma that the digital transformation team is now facing. "Our clever engineers prefer to do everything themselves", says David Eddes, "and I can understand that, especially because it was their work that fuelled our growth. But in the transformation we are undergoing, it’s important to look at things rationally and choose between 'make' or 'buy'."

For example, what about digital access by third parties to Itho Daalderop’s data, for example building services engineers who log in for information about a specific unit or to order a part? "We need to be absolutely certain that those data are secure, in the same way that we need to secure the data that people can access from apps or our website", says Winkelman. "We initially thought we’d retain identity and access management (IAM) ourselves, but when we realised how much work it is, what the risks are and what it costs, we soon decided to outsource."

Another example is Itho Daalderop’s choice to start working on a low-code platform that Itho Daalderop’s staff can use to build apps without their needing extensive coding experience. Winkelman: "The programmers in our firm would rather do it themselves. But this step is making us much more agile. Our implementation partner does the hard graft and our time to market is much shorter. We already have the first results: our updated website and IT0architecture, which we developed in cooperation with customers."

Innovation not last on the list

Now that the firm’s digitalisation plans have been tabled by the Digital Transformation Team, its members can focus on how they would like to move forward. "We’re trying to channel things in a specific direction", says Winkelman. "For example by prioritising all our plans. We’ve identified a number of guiding principles to help us assess our ideas. For example, we prefer to work from single sources of truth."

The Digital Transformation Team now also manages the budget for all digital expenditure. "It means that we have more control over our investments", says Eddes. Gerritsen zeros in on this comment: "As I see it, what’s important is that your team doesn’t put technology and innovation last on the list. That’s an important basis for a sound business case. A CFO or management board is just as likely to be obstructive in that respect."

When asked where he thinks Itho Daalderop will be in five years’ time, Winkelman does not hesitate. "By then we’ll have set up our organisation and processes as efficiently as possible and we’ll be handling our services digitally as much as possible, both for building service engineers and consumers. In five years’ time, Itho Daalderop will be in the digital vanguard of the construction and building services sector."