Ridge - Six-figure order for ‘Workspace’ from Union Square enables Ridge to implement best practice measures for document and email control

60 year old multidisciplinary construction consultancy, Ridge, a provider of construction services to the Formula One motor racing industry, has placed an order in the region of £130,000 with Union Square Software for its portal-based knowledge management software.
Ridge will now be able to easily store all corporate information including email correspondence and scanned paper documents in one central repository. Employees across the company’s six UK offices are then able to access information relating to specific projects, regardless of their location, and have confidence that they are working with the most up-to-date material at all times.
Established in 1946 by Harold John Ridge, a local Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Oxford-based Ridge currently employs around 250 people and enjoys major commissions and projects all around the world, including several research, manufacturing, training and corporate facilities for the Formula One motor racing industry, working with organisations such as British American Racing, Jaguar and the British Racing Drivers Club at Silverstone. As a consequence of its evolution, the company acknowledged a need to standardise and improve its workflow practices and the management of its daily business operations. Workspace was selected to enhance and replace incumbent internal systems for document storage and communication.
Ken Brown, a Partner at Ridge comments, “Although we had an adequately robust system, we were reliant on the traditional Microsoft Windows folder method for data storage. Additionally, in recent years there has been a change of emphasis on the use of email in the construction industry, instead of more formal correspondence. Like many other companies, we had thousands of emails that were not being adequately filed in the relevant project folders for later retrieval if necessary. An email is now considered to be a legal document and our insurers and partners require that we can produce them in any given circumstance. We needed an appropriate solution so that IT works better for the user without incurring a greater workload.”
Union Square’s Workspace software is designed to provide a range of benefits associated with capturing, storing and retrieving information through a single system and interface. Ridge will be utlilising the Workspace system to manage both its corporate and client documentation, e-mailing and searching facilities.
Brown continues, “We have six UK offices located in Oxford, Reading, Bristol, London, Leicester and Birmingham and a significant number of staff will often be working from home or from other remote locations. With staff now able to use Workspace via a Virtual Private Network we can be sure that all data is being stored accurately and efficiently, improving internal communication.”
Commenting on the decision to work with Union Square, Brown concludes, “Although we had already heard of Union Square, when we identified our need for a new solution we approached the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, which provided a list of preferred software suppliers for the industry. Out of the list, Union Square stood out as being the only provider with a viable, value added product. The project team has been particularly helpful, clearly demonstrating to us that they understand the Building consulting market and the specific needs of our business. We have been particularly impressed at how flexible the software can be.”

Email: nataliet@itpr.co.uk