Blue buildings against a blue sky 1200x800
Blue buildings against a blue sky 1200x800

Texas Construction Start-Up Realizes Power and Simplicity of CMiC Platform

TORONTO, May 15, 2019 – Caliper Contracting, a general contracting start-up in San Antonio, Texas, is only in their 3rd year in business but continues to double in revenue every year. The founding team of two—consisting of Art Serna, who manages the operations, and his wife, Lisa Serna, who is responsible for the back office—established Caliper in August 2017 after 20 years of experience working for ENR Top 400 general contractors.

It was during his tenure as a project manager at Structure Tone, a global leader in construction management and general contracting that drives more than $4 billion in annual construction volume, that Art Serna first encountered the CMiC platform to streamline and automate the processes between the back office and the field across global offices.

“My first encounter with CMiC was at Structure Tone. It was from that experience of using the software in my day-to-day that I realized the benefits of storing all of your mission critical data in a robust single database platform,” says Serna.

Despite seeing the efficacy of CMiC firsthand to deliver total visibility of real-time data across an enterprise, Serna felt the software was “out of reach” for a contactor starting from scratch and of his size, with a total headcount of five. While he searched for a comparable solution, Serna manually saved RFIs and submittals in Adobe and stored the data in OneDrive.

“I didn’t even bother with developing a spreadsheet during this time because even that process took time. It was manual entry of everything in addition to trying to remember what I did or did not submit,” admitted Serna. “Having worked with CMiC before, I could not imagine running a construction business any other way—so I picked up the phone and called.”

Serna’s decision to contact CMiC ended the search. CMiC’s recent focus on the small and medium business segment of the construction market drove 49% revenue growth for CMiC’s SMB market unit in the most recent fiscal year. With multi-tenant and private Cloud deployment options, CMiC can be tailored to fit a broad spectrum of IT requirements, budgets and deployment timeframes. Working directly with CMiC, Caliper Contracting adapted the software according to their unique needs and implemented Field Operations in 8 weeks—just under half of the original timeline.

“I was shocked by the opportunity to even have CMiC as a consideration again. It all came back to me—like riding a bike—during implementation. For the first time in 17 years, I was excited to do a submittal,” remarked Serna.

Since the deployment of CMiC, the reactions Caliper has received from clients and partners have ranged from surprise to amazement because they present like a “much larger company” when documents are sent through an enterprise-level ERP. Caliper’s goals for 2019 include fully integrating their accounting and introducing CMiC Mobile Field as they continue to increase their headcount.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about the set-up; if you don’t set your business up right, you won’t have a foundation to build on,” says Serna. “If you input all of your data correctly to begin with, it will flawlessly carry through to the execution of your jobs.”

About Caliper Contracting
Caliper Contracting Services, LLC. was founded in 2015 by Art and Lisa Serna after 20 years of experience working with the largest contractors in Central Texas. Caliper’s diverse project portfolio includes healthcare, MOB, TI, government, higher education and mission critical sectors, with a specialty in new construction, renovations and remodels. Caliper is proud to offer the expertise of a large-scale general contractor but at small-scale prices. For more information, please visit http://www.calipercontracting.com/

About CMiC
As an industry pioneer, CMiC delivers complete and unified ERP and field solutions for construction and capital projects firms. CMiC’s powerful software transforms how firms optimize productivity, minimize risk and drive growth by planning and managing all financials, projects, resources, and content assets—from a Single Database Platform™. With customers throughout North America, CMiC serves one-quarter of ENR’s Top 200 Contractors and hundreds of small and mid-sized construction firms, from general and specialty contractors to heavy/highway and project owners. For more information, please visit www.cmicglobal.com.