Balancing budgets is a challenging task in a field with as many stakeholders as the construction sector. Smartbeam’s financial management platform aims to simplify it by offering a tailored solution to the different stakeholders which focuses on instantaneity, reliability and collaboration.
Formerly a project engineer in the field and a financial manager of a construction company, Smartbeam’s co-founders Caroline Basecqz and Florent Coninck were frustrated by the lack of software solutions aimed at tackling the financial side of their work.
“We couldn’t find any good collaborative solution on the market to manage the financial aspects of our projects so we decided to invent it,” says Caroline, CEO and co-founder of Smartbeam.
Founded in 2018, Smartbeam, is a financial management platform which helps construction professionals keep a firm grasp on their budgets by automating and streamlining budget-related tasks.
“With Smartbeam we are building the first platform that gives instantaneity, reliability and visibility to construction budgets,” says Caroline. “Teams can collaborate more efficiently on one single platform to track work progress and expenses against budget in real-time and get a clear overview on the financial situation without having to go through Excel sheets or emails.”
“Collaborative solutions have helped both sides achieving more transparency and true partnerships focusing on what’s best for the project.”
Caroline Basecqz
Creating “True Partnerships”
Often organised in closed silos, the construction sector’s many stakeholders have a tendency to run into communication problems. Indeed, information is scattered across Excel files which cannot be accessed or exported by all the relevant parties, leading to costly inefficiencies and financial errors.
“Siloed communication patterns have always promoted the refuge in contracts that transferred the risk to the other party. Collaborative solutions have helped both sides achieving more transparency and true partnerships focusing on what’s best for the project,” says Caroline.
Smartbeam’s platform takes into account the different use-cases of the four largest stakeholders – project owners, managers, contractors and specialised companies – and offers a tailored solution that fits their needs.
Although the Luxembourgish construction sector initially resisted the adoption of Smartbeam, Covid-19 made it clear that digitalisation is the way forward and that resisting it will only hurt the sector in the long run.
Smartbeam is currently working with project managers such as Luxconsult or ICLUX and owners like Tracol immobilier and are planning to deploy the solution on all of their projects in the coming months.
Staying up-to-date with the newest technological developments, Smartbeam is already working on a project which synchronises budget information with Building Information Modeling (BIM).
