Interview with François JOUBERT Head of Pricing Studies at DEMATHIEU BARD CONSTRUCTION
An independent group established 160 years ago, DEMATHIEU BARD is one of the key figures in the French Construction and Property trade sector. As a subsidiary of DEMATHIEU BARD, the company DEMATHIEU BARD CONSTRUCTION is renowned for their technical expertise and skills in constructing structures which are both modern and exceptional.
In 2019, the Groupe accumulated 3800 employees, and achieved turnover of 1.6 billion euros.
François Joubert works in the Pricing Studies Department for the Direction of Infrastructures and Civil Engineering. The sector regroups markets associated with the construction of structures, underground infrastructures, and railway infrastructures. This activity has generated a turnover over 220 million euros, including 50% in the United States of America.
François Joubert, you’re currently Head of Pricing Studies for Civil Engineering Infrastructure at DEMATHIEU BARD CONSTRUCTION. Can you tell us about your work?
“My work consists of carrying out pricing studies for our projects, and using these to precisely define our cost price, and then our sales price.
Based on the totals of the quotes, they’re validated internally either by the agency, or by the Direction of Civil Engineering Infrastructures. We often work with amounts reaching several millions of euros – sometimes over hundreds of million.”
For around 2 years now, you’ve been using QDV7 ULTIMATE. Can you explain why you switched costing software?
Our old costing software ceased to be published, so we needed to find a new one. Following a market benchmark, we chose QDV7. We also completed 2 pricing studies in parallel with QDV7, so we could compare it with other solutions of the same type, and so we could verify our choice.
What are the competitive advantages that you’ve found in using QDV7 ULTIMATE?
The QDV7 software is a lot simpler, navigation between tabs is easy and intuitive, and you can work on 2 screens using the libraries interfaced with QDV. It saves us a lot of time for our costing.
Could you give us an idea of how much time you saved, compared to before?
Yes, we save at least 30% more time now, and I think that we’ll see even more improvements in the margins, by optimising QCD7. We currently only use a portion of the software’s features. For example, the versioning of the pricing study allows us to recover the entire history of the project in just a few clicks. As another example, the integration of our Excel sales sheet in QDV7 ULTIMATE also saves us time, and reduces the risk of errors.
Could you tell us about the launch and configuration of QDV7 ULTIMATE at DEMATHIEU BARD CONSTRUCTION? Who handled it, and how long did it take?
The company EURO ID TECHNOLOGIES handled the launch. Configuration took several months, using specifications that we had drafted, covering the results we expected and the responses to our needs. We also completed part of the configuration after taking training courses from QDV7 ULTIMATE Administrator. I myself am an administrator and user of QDV7. Today, we’re pretty much autonomous in regard to our new costing tool.
Any other comments?
QDV7 is a software that is continuously evolving in line with its clients’ needs. For example, the publisher has created a new feature dedicated to administrative sub-detail breakdowns in the 2021 version. We’re actually going to do some training on this at the beginning of March. A lot of other features are being improved and/or developed.
Another positive point is the reactivity and responses provided by the customer support team and hotline. We’ve often received effective, and helpful, responses within the same day.
There are a few bugs to work out, but that’s normal for any new software version, and the IAES publisher who handles level 2 maintenance is extremely reactive!
Overall, we’re really satisfied with QDV7 ULTIMATE.
