Brian Donnelly, CEO, Synapse says: “Ramboll is a great example of a business that has grown tired of inflexible, expensive software packages that never deliver exactly what they need. Retaining the spreadsheet system, which is now supported by the innovative Insight solution, will help the leadership team gain wider ‘insight’ into the overall status of ongoing projects and deliver maximum impact for minimum cost”
Synapse announced today that its premier partner, Green Light Change, (GLC) which utilises Synapse technology in its Insight Planning Budgeting and Forecasting solution, has successfully completed a major implementation for Ramboll, the multi-disciplinary global construction consultancy company.
The GLC Insight solution sits on top of the Synapse Middleware Platform, which is used in major financial institutions and helps alleviate the problems related to accessing group-wide data in organisations that are heavily reliant on multi-user spreadsheets for reporting. Every change of data is synchronised seamlessly with a Cloud database server to eradicate risk and deliver reliable data backed by a complete audit trail.
Ramboll Group A/S operates over 20,000 projects from 300 offices. The company’s global Project Excellence programme was delivering 
sustained improvements in customer satisfaction and cost reduction, but siloed data was preventing further gains. An attempt to solve this problem with enterprise software was terminated when it was discovered the needs of key stakeholders could not be met. Turning to Microsoft Excel™ for its adaptability, the team in Copenhagen constructed an effective solution operating across the top 100 projects. Early success meant the pressure was on to incorporate more projects and new features. Expansion was not feasible with Excel™ and the enterprise software path had not delivered. A new approach was needed, and Insight was deployed to incorporate Ramboll’s Excel™ user interfaces into a global enterprise solution. Enhancing Excel’s well-known strengths is enabling Ramboll to build on past success and dramatically reduce the need for costly, risky business change.
The technology is already helping Ramboll to speed critical reporting and achieve significant productivity gains. In the first month since going live, the time taken to build the monthly Major Projects Report has been reduced from 10 days to 3 days. Other key benefits include:
- Effort to chase data entry and deal with errors has been reduced by 90%
- Project data is connected together in real-time and the quality is far higher
- ROI is predicted to be significant
- All stakeholders have reported that Insight has improved their workflows and saved time
- “Deployment was so smooth it was barely noticed.”
“Ramboll is a great example of a business that has grown tired of inflexible, expensive software packages that never deliver exactly what they need,” comments Brian Donnelly, CEO, Synapse. “Retaining the spreadsheet system, which is now supported by the innovative Insight solution, will help the leadership team gain wider ‘insight’ into the overall status of ongoing projects and deliver maximum impact for minimum cost”
Sean Blencowe, CEO, Green Light Change said: “I’m very happy that Ramboll is already reaping the benefits of Insight. The connected environment is essential for high performing project portfolios and governance becomes simpler and more efficient. The connected data provides real-time status and forecasts, effectively enabling managers and leaders to ‘see around the corner’.”
Ramboll has begun to expand the number of projects contained within Insight, a trend set to accelerate. Integration with other IT systems is planned for Q1 2019. The leadership team will gain greater insight into more projects. Business unit and group level analysis can be easily expanded giving the Board wider insight into overall status and a forecast of what’s around the corner.
