Digitising Constructions Supply Chain ¦ With Rob Fox

Ciaran

All right, Rob, we’re up and away. Listen, welcome back, I have to say. Thanks for giving us your time again and coming on to the Time & Materials Podcast. How’s things been for you since we last spoke?

Rob

All good. Yeah, it’s great to be back, Ciaran. Thanks for having me on again. Yeah, it’s been good since we spoke last. Things move quickly and things change quickly, but all good.

Ciaran

For those that don’t know Rob, I’m going to just go back just a couple of steps just before we start jumping into Supplyo and what’s been going on there. Go right back. Why construction as a whole? What was your trade, if you want to call it that? Bring us right back to the start.

Rob

Yeah, it’s interesting to go back to the start because I suppose I’m a civil engineer originally, so that’s how I ended up in construction. It was either going into design or going out on site, so I decided that on site would suit me better. I worked in construction as a site engineer, project manager, contracts manager for over 20 years in Ireland and Australia and enjoyed it. It’s a fantastic industry, but it’s a completely mad industry as well. I just got an opportunity through my brother-in-law, who is an insurance technology entrepreneur, and he pulled back the curtain a little bit about what he was doing in the tech space. A bit like the old Yaz or Hughes, which some people might remember from Boys in the Black stuff who passed away a couple of years ago. I said, I could do that. It was a job, I could do that. I said, I’d have a crack at it. That’s my background and that’s, I suppose, how I get into the technology space.

Ciaran

What did you see, Rob? Was there a glaring problem in front of you that you said that, you know what, this needs to be looked at? What was the trigger that said, I’m going to down tools, so to speak, and what I’m doing here, and just go into an industry that’s unknown to me?

Rob

Yeah. I suppose I knew the industry, well, I just obviously didn’t know the technology side of it well, even though I had a passion for technology. I also felt that technology was underserving the construction industry. That’s changed a lot in the last seven years since I’ve been even doing this, but at the time I felt it was underserved. I suppose when I originally got this technology bug, all I could see in construction when I was still in construction were loads of problems that I thought could be solved by technology. I spent a bit of time looking at different things that came to me immediately. But as I thought about it over probably a couple of years before I actually made a jump, I eventually zoned in on supply chain management, because I felt that wasn’t being served as well as an offering in the technology space, but mainly because I thought it was an area where we could help construction companies have the biggest impact. Because, as you know, most projects with the larger main contractors are developers. The subcontractors do 85% of the work. That’s where all the value is. That’s where all the risk is. For a main contractor, who would be one of our main types of clients, the money is made or lost in the pre-construction procurement stage. Once you pick the subcontractor, you’ve agreed the price and everything else, and whether they’re fit to do the job or not, that’s all water under the bridge by the time you pick them and they go on site. That’s why I kind of zoned in on that area.

Ciaran

How would you… I mean, obviously, we’re very similar in that sense that come from the construction background. Something about tech was very shiny to me as well, where I said, I like the look of what’s over the wall. I think I’m going to have a go at that. But I suppose a lot of people that listen to this would be QS sitting in an office, business owner, running a company, and they would be seeing the same problems that we’d probably seen as well. How did you go about saying, I think there’s a problem here that I could potentially solve that could be much bigger than the job I’m working in. How do you go about validating that there’s a business in that?

Rob

Yeah. I mean, that’s a really good question, because you do see the shiny technology and it’s exciting. I started listening to podcasts about technology in San Francisco and Palo Alto, and I really got into it. And then sometimes you feel all the glitters is not gold. But how did I go about trying to see is there validating, I suppose, the hypothesis that I had, because I was fairly certain that I was onto something. But as you know, thinking that yourself and actually validate that in the market are two different things. So, I suppose I started off with a minimal viable product. We built the first version of what was Sight Passport, which is now Supplyo. So since we spoke the last time, we’ve changed just our name from Sight Passport to Supplyo. We’re still the same company. But I built a product and I started to bring it out and try and get in front of anybody I could to show them to say, this is what we’re doing. This is what it looks like. This is how it works, because you have to have something to show people. And I suppose the feedback I got on that was positive that we were onto something, but it was quite immature at that stage. So, to some degree, we were really just doing research and development for the first couple of years and going out, talking to people, coming back, and then putting my heads together with my technology team and saying, okay, could we do this? Could we do that? And then going back out with the latest version, showing it to people and iterating on that until there was a point where somebody said, yeah, that’s now substantial enough and valuable enough for me to start using it as a software solution. So that was kind of the process.

Ciaran

What problem, if you just summarize the problem you solve. I mean, every great company solves a big problem. What problem does Supplyo solve and who’s it for?

Rob

Yeah. So who’s it for? We work with anybody, I suppose, in the built environment. Anybody who has a complex supply chain that will operate across multiple projects and sometimes multiple jurisdictions and multiple sectors. So, our customers tend to work across anything from residential to pharma to data centers. So, anybody has a complex supply chain. And by that, I mean, if you’re working across all those different areas and types of sectors and lots of complex projects, you need to have a diverse and complex supply chain. You need lots of different types of subcontractors and suppliers. You need some that will do pharma, you need some that will do the residential. And sometimes they overlap and sometimes they’re completely different animals. So, they’re the type of companies we work with. So, what problem do we solve for those companies? I suppose, as you know yourself here at this stage, construction has always been very competitive and the margins are low, the risks are high. And with inflation over the last number of years and hyperinflation, that job of trying to make margin has even got harder. And there are other things coming into play, including ESG, which are going to add to construction inflation potentially. So, I suppose what we’re trying to help our customers with is going right back to start, even when they’re trying to win work. If you just take main contractors for a second, a main contractor, as anybody who works for main contracting, particularly an estimate and surveying will understand that when you’re trying to win a job and you’re competing against all your competitors to win that tender, you’re relying on subcontractors in particular and to some degree suppliers to give you pricing for the different elements of that project based on that they’re the experts in their field and they’ll tell you what a thousand pounds of rebar will cost today. You might have an idea for yourself, but those things move so quickly. So they’re constantly going out, estimators are going out trying to get prices off subcontractors. And sometimes they can’t get prices off subcontractors because a lot of people don’t want the price for estimators. Lets call a spade a spade, and nothing against estimators, it’s just that they’re talking to somebody who hasn’t won the job yet. They don’t have a job. They’re just trying to win the job.

Ciaran

No transaction at the end of it.

Rob

Yeah, it could be. And sometimes that’s just the cost of doing business and different companies take a view on that. But there’s one thing is having enough good relationships with subcontractors so that they will help the main contractor in that process of bidding. But even if you have good relationships with a large number of subcontractors who will work with you on that, you have to really understand which subcontractors are capable of pricing that job properly. Because sometimes a subcontractor will price a job on the back of the cigarette packet. They might give it a lot of detail. They might just do it because they get the main contractor off the back and they don’t want to offend them by saying, we’re not going to price it. So they might put in a price and depending on how much time they give that and how much interest they have in pricing that properly or how much experience they have. So if you ask a residential mechanical contractor to price a pharma job for you, you’re probably going to get a price back that’s either too high or too low. So our system, start to the start, is trying to understand the supply chain and have enough information about the supply chain to say, okay, the 50 mechanical contractors, we could ask to price this. There’s probably only 10 that actually would price it for us because we have that relationship where they’ll price a job for us, even if we’re only trying to win it. But out of those 10, there might only be five actually that are suitable to price their property. Because at the end of the day, when the main contractor wins a job and they get the call to say you’ve won the job, there’s usually kind of two reactions. It’s like, great, we’ve won the job. And then it’s like, oh shit, have we got everything covered? So there’s a risk when your pricing works in contracting.

Ciaran

And is the suitability, Rob, does that come down to historical interactions we’ve had, or we’ve worked on projects previously with these subcontractors and we know that they’re suitable for that project? Or are you collecting data on those subcontractors from elsewhere?

Rob

Yeah. So, a lot of it is… some of it is based on relationships, obviously. So you feel this person usually gives us reliable prices and we can trust those prices. So there’s a trust element to it. But you don’t always have that level of trust and experience with a subcontractor you might be asking to price. So then it comes down to data. If you don’t have the relationship and the knowledge and the trust and experience with them, you’re relying on data. So between data that we collect about the industry, information that the main contractors may have themselves, or information that is requested off the subcontractors directly, we put together a data set, a set of information that allows them, even at the estimating stage, it has a main contractor’s estimator or surveyor to go in and say, okay, based on this data, tell me of the 50 electric contractors, who are the five or six that are suitable to price in this project? And then you’re getting a more reliable price and then your overall data is more reliable.

Ciaran

Do subcontractors interact then with the platform directly themselves?

Rob

Yeah, they do. And they’re invited to interact. So, the difference between our platform and other platforms is that the marketplace sometimes allows the subcontractors to be notified there’s a job coming out and they’ll put their hand up first. Our platform is much more controlled in that if a main contractor wants to start an engagement with a subcontractor, they reach out to that subcontractor and say, hey, we have this job coming up. And they bring them through a process of, to some degree, relationship building with them, but also asking them for information. And so the subcontractor engages with the platform, even at that stage. And really, it’s a two-way street. It’s like, I’ll give you this information, Mr. Main Contractor, but I’m giving you this information on the basis that don’t send me tenders that are not suitable for me because I get those every day. So you’ve asked for information, they appreciate that. And if a job comes up that you think is a good fit for me, you want me to price it, send to me. But don’t send me any old rubbish just because it says I do mechanical on my website.

Ciaran

How have you found, imagine the maturity of a company’s tech know-how would probably be important there to gather the right information. You mentioned seven years ago, probably, well, I think we’re on very similar paths in terms of timeline as well. We would have been doing our research probably around that time as well. And again, we would have seen probably, we’re using massive gaping hole across the industry, very technically underserved. And with that comes problems as well is that it isn’t the norm to have to understand software as part of your role as whatever QS or whoever you might be. You don’t have to have that deep knowledge of software. How do you find adoption? And when I talk about adoption, I say, you’ve got a product. Is it key that you educate the subcontractors and the main contractors on how to use that platform before it can be used? Or how do they understand how to use your product in order to get the best from it?

Rob

Yeah, it’s a really good question. So it’s a little bit more straightforward on the supply chain subcontractor side, because the level of engagement that they have with the platform is much less, obviously. And the key to that is it’s just got to be really, really highly intuitive, because unless a subcontractor opens up an email and starts to go through a process, they can follow it without having any questions. And actually, that process needs to be easier than how they used to do it before. So you’re making it easy for them to engage. So it has to be highly intuitive and highly user-friendly for the suppliers, because you can provide videos, you could do seminars and all the rest of it, but people won’t turn up and they don’t have time and everything else. So that’s straightforward enough. The same obviously equally applies on the main contractor side who wants to engage with the supply chain. And again, it has to be highly intuitive, a very good user experience, usability, user-friendly, all that good stuff. But there is a bit more, I suppose, training and education around that. And I suppose when we start working with a customer, usually somebody within that company will get what we’re doing quite quickly. And they’ll go, I get it. I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve been looking for this. I get it. And you get them on board and this is obviously through the sales process. And you get to a stage where that person, that company decides they want to do it. There is actually a bit of an education for the rest of the team, because some people think more about some things than others and might be further ahead in their knowledge path. So the first thing we do is to make sure everybody understands what our technology, what the problem is that we’re trying to solve for their company and how we do it before we get into any training or learning anything else. Because they have to get that. They have to buy into, we have this problem, and this solution looks like it’s going to help us to solve that problem. And sometimes earlier in our own journey, we didn’t spend as much time on that. We just assumed everybody got it. So we do that. And then after that, then it is the training part. Once you have people on board, the training becomes very straightforward. People want to learn. They want to know how it works. They want to start using it. And once they start using it, it becomes like riding a bike. It takes a little bit to get going. But again, we’re not reinventing the wheel. We’re just providing a much more intuitive, streamlined, simpler way of doing a lot of what they did already. They’re just doing it all in one place as opposed to trying to do it all over the shop.

Ciaran

Some of the things that we come across as well, when we speak to a lot of our customers, we would hear a lot of, oh, we bought a system similar last year. It just didn’t work out for us. And we’ve been using that system over there. But to be honest with you, I think we only probably get about 20% of the value out of it. And a lot of time when we dig into them questions, it feels like the implementation part of the system, the system is probably the right system for the company. It feels the implementation probably didn’t go to plan. As a construction business owner, let’s say I’m a business owner, director, a part of the management team, whatever it might be. If I was asking you then, what are some do’s and don’t do’s when it comes to me wanting to implement it? Let’s say I come to you, I’m a decision maker at a company. I like your system. I really like it. I’ve got some concerns whether we’re going to get the buy-in from the team because that’s the way they do things. We don’t want to be disrupting things too much, but I see it. I get it. What are some of the do’s and don’t do’s in terms of how we could get this from you? Yeah, I like the product into it, right? We can get the team fully using this product in terms of its process from training and implementation.

Rob

Yeah. Listen, you’re absolutely spot on. You could have a product that’s absolutely perfect for that company, solves a really big problem that they have, and the managing director might absolutely buy into it because he’s in the helicopter looking down and has an appreciation for these things. It can be a real challenge for that main contractor and ourselves then to bring everybody on that bus, as you say. Again, we didn’t probably give this enough time. We didn’t fully understand this whole process ourselves initially. I suppose how we’ve refined that and improved that is A, is getting the people on the call to understand you’re not jumping straight into the solution. This is the feedback we’ve had from your company. These are the problems that we hear you have, and we’re just trying to use our software to help you solve those problems. Now, I try and ask people on that call, and I do this in conjunction with the managing director, tell them how we’re going to go about this. I’ve got to say, some of you might have some objections to this, and some of you might not like the idea. It’d be great to hear those concerns or objections or worries, and let’s get them out on the table. Now, not everybody will put their hand up, but you’re giving people an opportunity to say, listen, I think this is a lot of rubbish. I don’t think we should be doing this. Because it could be five people, it could be 50 people on that call. You’re trying to smoke out the people who might not want to do this for reasons that might not be the best interest of the company, but you’re really trying to give people the opportunity to voice those concerns. And then after that, I suppose we’re very heavy in being hands-on in the implementation. It’s a project management, people management exercise. We set out an implementation plan and say, there’s a lot of things that you want our software to do and we’d like our software to do for you, but we’re not going to do them all in one go. We’re going to start off what we believe is the most urgent problem that you have and where we can add the most value. And we’re going to start and roll that out, and we’re going to make sure the right people get the training on that. And when that’s done, and everybody’s happy with that, we’re going to go in six weeks’ time to phase two, phase three, and phase four, whatever it might be. Some people will be nice and slow, but we’ll move at whatever speed the company wants to move at. But we would always say, it’s one thing at a time. If this is a solution like ours, where there’s four modules and you want to use all four, well, you have to decide which one to start with. And then you build confidence with everybody, including the broader team, the managing director, and people get to know each other, and you build relationships, you build a bit of rapport. And then you say, okay, guys, I didn’t want to overhook it there. Now we’re going to phase two, and then you take them through that. But we’re extremely hands-on in managing that. And we would have calls every two, three, four weeks, depending on what’s necessary to make that happen. And people have to turn up. And if people don’t turn up or don’t engage, we will report back to the managing director and say, not to beat people up, we’re just saying, this is the level of engagement we’ve got. These people are turned up. These people didn’t turn up. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. But you’re trying to empower the managing director to provide the leadership based on, he wants to do it. And sometimes the managing director needs to obviously provide that leadership and push people a little bit without trying to break them.

Ciaran

Is there ever a case where you will ask or even try and get senior management involved in the training process for the sake of providing that bit of leadership to say, this is going in, and I’m here on this call, and I’m going to make sure that even though I’m not going to have any involvement in the day-to-day operation of the system, but I am driving this in, is there any cases where you need to draft in senior leadership management?

Rob

Yeah. In fact, we insist on it, because unless they turn up and take the time to hear it, because they’re still, they get the idea of it, but they need to know the detail too. And they need to know how it works and all that to have a better sense for it. Because very often they just get the concept. But it’s really important as you say, Ciaran, from a leadership point of view, and they’re showing, this is important to me. So if I’m going to turn up in 45 minutes to go through a familiarization and training session, I expect everybody else to turn up. Yeah.

Ciaran

You’ve been fairly active on LinkedIn recently, pushing it out. Actually, I use it as a news feed nearly by itself, just looking at projects. I usually use CIS for project implementation, but I can get it all through you now. What was-

Rob

Oh, it’s free.

Ciaran

Yeah, it’s free. Well, not forever. I’d say you have something on a plan there, Rob. What was your thinking there? Did you come up and say, all right, I need to start getting myself out there? Did you have any… I’m always interested in people’s sort of… You’ve got your business and your marketing that goes on, and then you’ve got your own personal stuff. What was your thinking there from just getting more active on LinkedIn?

Rob

Yeah. I mean, listen, I think LinkedIn is fantastic. And I still think I’m only scratching the surface on this, even though every time I talk to somebody, I say, oh, I saw you on LinkedIn. So it definitely is effective. And I suppose people hate salesy marketing stuff. LinkedIn, to me, is really a place for people to share knowledge and share ideas and what’s going on in the world. And I suppose I’m always looking at what’s going on in the world, just watching in the news or wherever. It’s obviously very construction-related. And I will post something or repost something if I think it would be of interest to me and the wider industry. That’s amazing that John Sisk and Son are about to start on the Manchester City Stadium. I didn’t know that. There was a tender process. I maybe missed the tender process, but they’re now starting. And so that’s something that people out there would like to know about. And it’s obviously the quid pro quo of social media is that you’re building your profile, but you’re trying to give people interesting information and maybe some thought leadership that is of interest to people, yet it has the benefit of raising your profile as an individual, as the CEO of a company, but also of the company itself. So that’s kind of the way I look at it.

Ciaran

Yeah. It seems to be working well. I mean, if anyone wants to reach out, is LinkedIn the best place to connect with you?

Rob

Yeah, I think LinkedIn is the best place. I mean, you’ll find all our contact details on our website, but really, I think LinkedIn is the best place to contact us. And people can contact me about whatever they want. Sometimes people would see we’re doing, for example, something on blockchain or we’re involved in some industry-wide initiative. So it doesn’t have to be, hey, Rob, we’re interested in your service. I’m always interested to talk to people who have interesting thoughts about the future of construction and everything else. And that’s what gets me excited is to hear what people are thinking. And sometimes that’ll feed into how we look at our own business and what offerings we have. But sometimes it’s just have those conversations and be in the loop about what’s happening out there.

Ciaran

Absolutely. Last question for me, what is the overall vision for a Supplyo? If we fast forward five years, seven years, and you’re looking back, what are you hoping to achieve?

Rob

Yeah, it’s a really good question. I believe that one of the most important things in construction is the relationship between, let’s say, main contractors and subcontractors. And I think that that relationship sometimes gets bogged down in paperwork and all the administrative parts of it. And very often that distracts people from doing the construction piece. We’ve seen that across, I think. So what we’re trying to do really is make that engagement between main contractors and subcontractors as simple and as easy as possible, so that more of the time can be spent on both sides on the construction piece and less on the paperwork. And the paperwork has to be done, but the duplication and multiplication of information has been asked for. Construction is hard enough. We don’t need to make it any harder by putting this huge burden on people, asking them for the same information three or four times. So that’s our vision, is to make it easier for main contractors and subcontractors to do business together and that everybody can get on with construction and spend time trying to get things done and trying to make a few quid and not have a guy stuck in the office doing admin work to some degree that the technology can take care of.

Ciaran

Is that a UK-Ireland vision or are you looking to go further?

Rob

Presently, it’s UK-Ireland. That’s kind of big enough for us right now. But we are talking to a lot of contractors who are operating across the EU, particularly in the pharma and the data center side of things. So that’s a very interesting area. And we are working, starting to work with companies who have that breadth. I would say the US is in the future, but I wouldn’t say it’s this year or next year.

Ciaran

No doubt you’ll get there, Rob. Great product, great businesses. And thanks very much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Rob

Yeah, no, thanks, Ciarán. Always good to talk to you. See you soon.