Soprema, an independent family group based in Alsace, specializes in roofing, soundproofing and building insulation, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers. It has been operating in Canada since 1978. Its North American reach also extends to Convoy, a building materials distribution company owned by Soprema, and Soprema USA.
It is for these companies that Soprema Canada uses Gouti in their project office.
José Paquette, Project Office Manager at Soprema Canada, gave us an account of his user experience.
"The projects managed at Soprema Canada are mainly digital transformation projects. These include projects to implement customer relations systems (CRM), information systems for human resources, projects to improve our ERP system...etc. In other words, a range of projects with a technological component. So it's the people in and around the Information Systems department who are the main users of the Gouti solution.
Other departments are also interested in the platform. Our Research & Development department, which manages product development projects, came knocking on our door after hearing about Gouti. I had the opportunity to present the platform to them, as well as to the Industrial Engineering department, which manages plant construction projects, for example. They are currently exploring the solution."
"When I joined Soprema Canada as Project Office Manager, we didn't have a project management tool at the time. Our team was able to evaluate several North American "big players" such as Monday.com, Wrike and Trello, until Gouti arrived via the Soprema Europe branch. We took a look and were pleasantly surprised by its pragmatism and simplicity, particularly when it came to helping us educate and coach our project managers.
To answer your question "Why?", we wanted to implement best practices in project management via the project office. This involves a project management tool capable of providing a portfolio view, planning projects appropriately, tracking risks, issues, change requests...etc. We didn't want to do that. We didn't want to do this by hand, in Excel files. So, we were looking for tools that were a little more intelligent, that would provide certain automatisms for the people who work as project managers.
For the record, before our branch in Europe, already using the solution, advised us to test Gouti, we had selected the Wrike solution. We had purchased a license for 1 year, three weeks before I received the email about Gouti. We then still took a look at Gouti and it was a crush. We then decided to drop Wrike and retained Gouti."
"What made us choose Gouti is clearly the ease of use in terms of the user interface. This is the main point.
The second point is the fact that all the elements of project management such as risks, problems, actions are centralized on a single platform. Other solutions like Wrike, for example, are very strong planning tools but lack the functionality to be able to manage all aspects of project management.
I therefore consider Gouti to be a good planning tool, but what makes it different from the others is that it is a complete project management tool in terms of functionality. It is able to manage a multitude of project management aspects within a single interface."
"The added values of Gouti are numerous. Firstly, I would say the visibility and awareness that the tool has given us on our project portfolio. Previously, we did not have a platform that allowed us to centralize all the projects. So each project manager managed his projects on his own. For the top management of the company, there was no way to have a portfolio view to visualize all the projects. Gouti allowed us to create this transparency on all the projects that are in progress.The Top Management therefore has all the elements to facilitate decision-making with regard to current or future projects.
Another added value of Gouti is based on the standardization of project management tools. We have standardized our Gantt charts, our progress reports, all the documentation that previously depended on each project manager. We could have a project manager who worked alone on Monday.com, another who worked alone on Click-up, another on Excel…etc. We have therefore been able to implement a common structure and method, which offers better visibility on the progress of projects and allows better interpretation of project data."
"The major benefit of using Gouti is based on improving the project methodology at Soprema.
The project methodology was implemented about a year before the implementation of Gouti, working with processes and models of project charter and progress report on Excel. This allowed us to initially standardize our project management.
When Gouti arrived, it raised the bar even higher. The fact that all project documentation is produced or even consolidated in Gouti has brought savings in data entry. We no longer have to transcribe information from one report to another, the data is entered once and Gouti allows us to use the Data efficiently."
"Gouti was relatively well accepted by the teams.
A few people were a bit hesitant when first using the tool. It was mainly a young demographic, preferring a very customizable and modular interface, such as can be found on Monday.com, where Gouti can be more rigid.
However, there is no perfect solution, you have to weigh the pros and cons. Once the employees became aware of the performance of the tool, acceptance went very well, especially in terms of ease of use."
"I am very very impressed and very satisfied with the responsiveness of the CG Project Management team.
I first had several exchanges with Christian Gutekunst, director of the company, to whom I shared my ideas. I also keep a very good relationship with Christian. I then added myself more to the Gouti Users Club where I propose my improvements and my requests.
The User Club is a very good idea that allows users to join this club and discuss requests. This is where a solution like Gouti evolves and grows. This tool exists for your users so it is a joy that the Gouteam is so attentive to them. I have nothing bad to say about the team. The responsiveness is very good. We submit ideas and they are taken into account.
"Pragmatic, simple and complete"
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