Industry: IT | Case Study
Also Available in PDF format
Established in 1978, Pivot Engineering and General Contracting has been helping customers across the UAE transform ideas on paper into tangible assets of real value for the last 35 years. Pivot’s portfolio of completed and current projects demonstrates a wide range of construction, including villa compounds, high-rise towers, hotels, malls and even oil and gas installations.
Among some of the company’s most notable completed projects are The Diwan of His Highness the Crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the Lulu Hypermarket in AlBarsha, Dubai, while the company are currently working on the AKOYA villas by DAMAC Properties.
The foundation of each project, according to the company vision, is based upon reliability, certainty and excellence from the entire Pivot team, comprising 5,000 employees including civil engineers, quantity surveyors and quality engineers.
In order to enhance the relationship between these various company departments, which in turn would increase the efficiency of operations and completion of projects, Pivot sought to implement a centralised IT platform at its Abu Dhabi head office.
IT holds particular importance in the construction sector, says the company’s IT manager, Aytek Adogan. “It’s a major aspect of our day-to-day operations," he says. "Prior to the implementation of the any new products, our tracking capabilities of project completions and asset management were limited to Excel spreadsheets. This was not beneficial to myself as a manger or formy technicians, as we were unable to detect reports and analyse data on a real-time basis.”
Since Adogan joined Pivot in 2015, various changes have been implemented in order to tackle these issues. “I needed to understand how my team was performing, by measuring and monitoring what they
were doing from a manager’s point of view,” he says.
The company adopted ManageEngine’s Service Desk Plus - an ITIL ready service desk with a configuration management database (CMDB), which has given Adogan great visibility and central control over the company’s IT infrastructure.
“Service Desk Plus allows us to now receive all incidents from individual users into one centralised base. We have established a centralised help desk at our Abu Dhabi office that serves our users, and if someone in the company has an issue that requires the help of the IT team, they can now access our assistance through Service Desk Plus,” says Adogan.
The software’s request and incident management capabilities have been the most beneficial to Adogan and his team. “The service means that we are now very accountable as an IT team, as each response to an incident is reported and logged, meaning I can effectively monitor the progress of each request and detect any delay in responses,” he says. “We also do not have IP phones at all of our sites, but this is no longer an issue as the team can communicate via this centralised platform.”
The software relays information from asset management, service requests and problem solving in order for Adogan to get a complete understanding of IT operations within the company. It has also
enabled Adogan to oversee employee availability through the software’s calendar feature. “This feature has been particularly useful, as it helps me focus on how many people I should assign to each resource. It has meant my people accountability has been enhanced, which is very beneficial for me as a manager,” he says.
In addition to Service Desk Plus, Pivot is in the process of completing the installation of ManageEngine’s Desktop Central, which is a web-based server equipped with desktop and mobile device management software. This also operates from a centralised location, and enables Adogan to extend the IT department's reach to various locations via the software’s remote desktop support.
“For example, if an employee was at a site in Al Ain, this application helps us reach out to them, and allows my help desk engineer to assist them with any issues they may have,” he says. “Desktop Central also provides us with remote installation capabilities, so not only can we control and monitor our users’ PCs, but we can also remotely control and deploy applications, patch systems and efficiently maintain our environment.”
The deployment of both applications – which took place at the beginning of 2017 – was successful and stress-free, according to Adogan. “My experience with ManageEngine has been great,” he says. “We have had fantastic support from Elitser, their distributor here in the region. Both applications were deployed within a week, and the process was both seamless and fast-moving, with no issues at all.”
Since Adogan’s posting in 2015, he has led various changes within Pivot’s IT department, including the virtualisation of 25 servers to four individual blade servers, as well as implementing an ERP project that is now successfully up and running.
About the Customer
- Pivot Engineering and General Contracting has been helping customers across the UAE transform ideas on paper into tangible assets of real value for the last 35 years.
- Pivot Engineering and General Contracting has about 5000 employees.
Free Edition