With operations across Latvia, Binders is one of the country’s leading construction companies. The company specializes in public-sector infrastructure projects, including roads, railways, and airfields.

Founded:

1993
Projects per year:

40-60
Employees:

500

Summary

Challenges

Win more public tenders for infrastructure projects each year.
Increase competitiveness by keeping operational costs lean.
Replace cumbersome paper-based processes with digital workflows.

Solution

Deployed a central content management solution.
Designed efficient digital business processes.
Achieved high rates of user adoption.

Results

Eliminated paper documentation
Accelerated processes by up to 50%
Prepared for future requirements

Challenges

Competing for major national infrastructure projects underway in Latvia
Winning public tenders demands competitive pricing
Paper processes reduce efficiency and increase costs

Founded in 1993 and with operations across Latvia, Binders specializes in public infrastructure projects, including roads, railways, and runways. In addition to its construction and engineering activities, the company operates the largest private and accredited construction materials testing laboratory in Latvia—helping Binders to uphold the highest quality standards.

“Each year, we work on approximately 60 construction projects all over Latvia,” said Verners Jonāts, head of business development at Binders. “Looking ahead, we aim to play a prominent role in initiatives such as Rail Baltica, a greenfield rail transport infrastructure project that will connect the Baltic States to the European rail network.”

To successfully bid for new public infrastructure projects, Binders must demonstrate its ability to deliver on time and on budget. With major new opportunities such as Rail Baltica on the horizon, the company wants to ensure its offering is as competitive as possible.

“Public projects represent around 90% of our portfolio—and to grow our business, we want to win more of these projects each year,” Jonāts elaborated. “Cost and quality are both key criteria during public tenders. So, we are always looking for ways to improve our operational efficiency.”

Previously, Binders relied almost exclusively on paper documents to drive its operations: from bidding for projects and drawing up engineering plans to paying suppliers and preparing regulatory reports. The company recognized that moving to digital workflows would accelerate its core business processes significantly, helping it to take on more projects each year while keeping costs lean.

“We used to create three identical copies of each paper document: one for our operational use, one for our records, and one for our regulator,” explained Jonāts. “A typical project would generate around 1,500 pages of paper, which meant we had over 90,000 documents to manage in a typical year. This presented a number of disadvantages. As well as the costs of printing, managing, and mailing documents, it was easy for paper to get lost in the shuffle—leading to delays and reducing our operational efficiency. To prepare for the future, we decided to digitize our processes.”

A group of people working on a construction site

Thanks to the efficiencies we’ve gained with OpenText content management, we’re confident we can grow our business without increasing back-office headcount.

Verners Jonāts
Head of Business Development, Binders

Solution

Together with technology partner Digital Mind, Binders replaced paper documents with digital workflows. Powered by OpenText™ Extended ECM content management, their new way of working breaks down internal information silos and helps accelerate key processes.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Extended ECM

Extended ECM provides access to information when and where needed within processes to improve decision-making and drive operational effectiveness

Deploying a central content management solution

Binders found the optimal solution to help enhance its operations using the OpenText content management solution. With the new platform, the company gains a single, central repository to store all key business documents, augmented with end-to-end digital process flows.

“One of the most striking differences I’ve noticed between OpenText and other tools is how flexible the OpenText solution is,” commented Jonāts. “With OpenText content management, it’s very easy to build custom digital workflows to support our business processes—even complex workflows such as testing samples of construction materials in our laboratory.”

Designing efficient digital business processes

Working with expert support from local technology partner Digital Mind, Binders overcame a slow start to digitization and is implementing solutions faster. Integrating OpenText content management into its day-to-day operations was relatively easy.

“It was clear from the start that the Digital Mind team has a great deal of experience with OpenText deployments,” commented Jonāts. “Digital Mind really took the time to understand how our business operates and to help us find the most efficient way to map those processes into the OpenText solution. Whenever we decide to make a change to one of our processes, we know we can call on Digital Mind to advise us on the best practices.”

Achieving high rates of user adoption

Using OpenText content management, Binders has replaced almost all its paper processes with digital workflows. By taking a proactive approach to change management, the company has achieved high adoption rates for the OpenText solution throughout the business.

“One of the first departments to go live with OpenText was our legal team,” Jonāts recalled. “In the past, there was always a risk of documents being misplaced as they were passed from desk to desk for review and approval. Thanks to the OpenText solution, this entire workflow happens digitally—and we can see the status of all contracts from a single point of control. We’ve since expanded the solution to teams across the company, including our finance, construction, and laboratory departments.”

Three construction workers looking at a laptop

We’re looking forward to finding new ways to leverage OpenText content management enhance our operations—helping us build world-class infrastructure for the people of Latvia.

Verners Jonāts
Head of Business Development, Binders

Results

With OpenText content management driving its digital business processes, Binders is unlocking greater speed, efficiency, and agility to target new opportunities for public-sector construction projects in Latvia.

Eliminated paper documentation

In the five years since it first deployed OpenText content management, Binders has leveraged the solution to manage over 177,000 project-related documents more efficiently than ever.

“Many of our 500 employees collaborate on documents within traceable digital workflows, which means we’ve all but eliminated the risk of misplacing paper documents,” said Jonāts. “We create documents with the help of OpenText content management and store a digital copy with our regulators for long-term retention.”

Jonāts added, “Our digitization initiative also makes routine audit activities much less labor-intensive. Instead of trawling through thousands of paper records, we can give auditors access to easily searchable information in OpenText.”

Accelerated processes by up to 50%

OpenText content management is enabling Binders to achieve its goals of speed, efficiency, and agility—sharpening the company’s competitive advantage when bidding for new projects.

“Our OpenText solution is empowering us to work faster than ever without compromising on quality,” confirmed Jonāts. “For example, by connecting with the state-regulated building information system where all official documents are submitted, we accelerated our post-project document handovers by 50%, and our on-site teams can now order tests of construction materials from their smartphones instantly. Thanks to the efficiencies we’ve gained with OpenText, we’re confident we can grow our business without increasing back-office headcount while meeting state requirements.”

Prepared for future requirements

Building on its partnership with Digital Mind, Binders continues to explore new opportunities to streamline and enhance its business processes. The company is currently working on a workflow to automate the onboarding of seasonal construction employees and planning a new project to accelerate and easily collect data for environmental, social, and governance reporting.

“The regulatory environment for construction is complex and constantly evolving. By combining OpenText and other digital solutions, we can adapt much more easily than when we were working with paper processes,” said Jonāts. “We’re looking forward to finding new ways to leverage OpenText content management to enhance our operations—helping us build world-class infrastructure for the people of Latvia.”