With new home construction up 22 percent in 2022, homebuilders must balance growing buyer demand with major supply chain issues, record-high lumber prices and significant labor shortages.
In this challenging environment, highvolume homebuilders need to optimize business processes, operations and margins. To capitalize on the market, homebuilders are focusing on ways to increase the speed for rolling out new plans and opening new communities.
Two leading North American homebuilders, Stanley Martin Homes and Activa, looked to modernize their core systems to streamline operations and manage entire builder lifecycle, from feasibility to post-sales services.
Stanley Martin Homes: Growing ‘one company at a time’
Reston, Virginia-based Stanley Martin Homes (SMH), founded in 1966, joined Daiwa House Group in 2017, creating one of the world’s largest real estate and development companies. Since then, SMH has expanded into new markets by acquiring FrontDoor Communities, Essex Homes and Avex Homes. Builder magazine named SMH the 2021 Builder of the Year, citing its strategy of growing “one company at a time.”
That expansion has been good for business, but tough for IT management. SMH’s estate of legacy software couldn’t keep pace. And few of its older systems could be used by employees on the move with their smartphones, tablets and laptops.
To overcome these challenges, SMH selected DXC Technology to modernize its core system because of DXC’s experience with applications and services and DXC Homebuilder One, an end-to-end, cloud-based ERP solution for homebuilders.
It’s built around Microsoft Dynamics 365, leveraging the power of Microsoft Power Platform, Power Apps, Power BI, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure cloud, offering builders greater efficiency, repeatability and higher levels of quality.
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SMH now uses DXC Homebuilder One for its entire builder lifecycle — from land feasibility through development, sale, construction, finance and postsales customer service. In addition, DXC supported SMH’s strategy of growing through acquisitions by helping the company build an additional software system that smooths its acquisition process.
DXC Homebuilder One is based in the cloud, so it also helps homebuilders reduce capital costs and eliminate downtime. Cloud-based also means the system delivers full functionality to any internet-connected device, anywhere in the world.
“It doesn’t matter what device you’re on or where you are — with DXC Homebuilder One, everything works,” says SMH’s president and CEO, Steve Alloy. “It’s become really easy.”
Nick Jones, the company’s CTO, adds that because DXC Homebuilder One is all sourced and maintained by DXC, that’s made onboarding acquisitions “much smoother.” He estimates that onboarding with DXC Homebuilder One takes his team just 3 months, down from the previous 6 to 8 months.
Another important benefit to SMH is the ability to leverage the hierarchy of options and attributes. “
It’s a gamechanger for our purchasing and contracting communities,” explains CTO Jones. “It allows us to know the purchase price we negotiated with trades not just at the community level, but across broader geographic boundaries.”
Activa: Ensuring a ‘single source of truth’
Activa is a leading land developer and homebuilder based in Waterloo, Ontario. Founded 30 years ago, Activa is also one of the best established homebuilders in the area. Some of its growth has come with acquisitions.
Approximately 6 years ago, Activa acquired a home-building company. Unfortunately for Activa’s VP of information systems and technology, Roger Brooks, that saddled the combined organization with two incompatible ERP systems. “At the time we asked, ‘Isn’t there something better?’” Brooks recalls. “That was our main driver.”
Activa chose DXC Homebuilder One for its end-to-end ERP functionality and implemented the solution in just 7 months, giving the company support for the full builder lifecycle.
“That’s allowed us to get rid of our legacy systems,” Brooks says. “Now we have a single source of truth.”
To date, 15 high-production builders worldwide have implemented DXC Homebuilder One, the most comprehensive ERP built on the Microsoft platform in the homebuilding marketplace. Today, following those implementations, DXC stands firmly behind Homebuilder One.
“Since going live with Homebuilder One, DXC has helped us adopt and extend our use of the product,” Brooks says. “Our support from the DXC team has been outstanding — second to none in my entire career.”
