Case studies
Case study · Construction services — waterproofing and roofing
SBS
Waterproofing
The system behind more than a decade of growth
Live — in daily use since 2015
One system for every enquiry, quote, deposit and job — built around how a waterproofing contractor actually sells and delivers work.
Project overview
Project snapshot
Responsibilities and status, stated plainly. Where the record is silent — a date, a measured result — the page says so rather than guessing.
- Industry
- Construction services — waterproofing and roofing
- Target users
- Sales and office staff, site teams and management at SBS Waterproofing; customers receive SMS references, quotes and invoices
- GEMIS’s role
- Website and campaign partner from 2014; designer, builder and ongoing support partner of the business system from 2015
- Scope
- Enquiry capture, sales pipeline, quoting, deposit invoicing linked to accounting, project profitability and stock
- Timeframe
- Website and campaigns from 2014; the business system from 2015, extended since
- Status
- Live — in daily use since 2015
- Key deliverables
- Company website and Google campaign management (2014); Enquiry capture with an automatic SMS reference number to the customer; Sales pipeline tracking every call, email and appointment to the sale; Online quote acceptance with the deposit invoice raised automatically into accounting; Profit shown per project and stock reorder reminders
The business challenge
The system behind more than a decade of growth
Website and Google campaigns from 2014; their own business system from 2015, which grew into ManaGEM.
SBS Waterproofing keeps Cape Town’s roofs and walls dry. After GEMIS built its website and helped run its Google campaigns in 2014, enquiries started arriving faster than the business could keep track of them.
The off-the-shelf apps SBS tried did not fit the way a waterproofing contractor works: an enquiry becomes a site visit, a quote, a deposit, a scheduled job and a final invoice, with stock consumed along the way. Each step lived in a different tool, so leads were lost between them and nobody could see which jobs made money.
The business needed one place where every enquiry was captured, every step to the sale was tracked, and the paperwork that follows a sale happened on its own.
In their words
By launching an online advertising campaign, we effectively doubled our turnover within 1 year. Since GEMIS created our new website, we're barely able to keep up with all the enquiries.
Discovery and evidence
What the design was based on
Only the evidence that exists is described here. Nothing is labelled research that was not.
There is no research report in the record for this project. The system was designed from how SBS Waterproofing already worked: an enquiry becomes a site visit, a quote, a deposit, a scheduled job and a final invoice, with stock consumed along the way.
Two facts shaped the brief. Enquiries from the 2014 website and Google campaigns were arriving faster than the business could keep track of, and the off-the-shelf apps SBS tried did not fit that sequence, so leads were lost between tools.
Strategy and system structure
Why this approach fits the problem
- Capture once, at the moment it happens
- Automate the hand-offs that leak time
- Show the business whether each job pays
Rather than adapt SBS to a generic package, GEMIS designed the system around SBS’s own pipeline. The enquiry is the root record: it is captured once, the customer gets an SMS reference straight away, and every call, email and appointment hangs off it until the job is won.
The hand-offs that used to depend on someone remembering were automated. A quote goes out in a few clicks; when the customer accepts online, the deposit invoice follows automatically and lands in the accounting system without re-keying.
Because the system holds the costs as well as the sale, every project shows whether it made money, and stock reorder reminders arrive before a job stalls. The design was general enough that the same system later became the basis of ManaGEM, GEMIS’s business management platform.
GEMIS built SBS Waterproofing's website and helped run its Google campaigns from 2014. As enquiries outgrew off-the-shelf apps, GEMIS built SBS its own business system from 2015: enquiry capture and sales pipeline, SMS reference numbers, quotes accepted online, automatic deposit invoices linked to accounting, profit per job and stock reorder alerts. SBS has grown many times over and still runs on it. The system grew into GEMIS's ManaGEM product.
Read the transcript
SBS Waterproofing keeps Cape Town's roofs and walls dry. In 2014, GEMIS built their website and helped run their Google campaigns. Enquiries started coming in faster than anyone could keep track of. Off-the-shelf apps didn't fit how SBS worked, so GEMIS built them a system of their own. Every enquiry is captured, and the customer gets an SMS with a reference number straight away. Every call, email and appointment is tracked, all the way to the sale. Quotes go out in a few clicks, customers accept online, and the deposit invoice follows automatically, straight into the accounting system. Every project shows whether it made money, and the system sends a reminder when stock needs reordering. More than ten years on, SBS has grown many times over, and still runs its business on it. And the system built for SBS grew into ManaGEM. GEMIS and SBS Waterproofing have worked side by side since 2014.
The workflow as implemented
- New enquiry Captured once; the customer gets an SMS reference straight away
- Contacted Every call, email and appointment hangs off the enquiry
- Site visit Tracked on the same record through to the sale
- Quoted A few clicks to send; the customer accepts online
- Won The deposit invoice follows automatically into accounting
- Project Profit shown per job; stock reorder reminders
The system, step by step
What the user needs to do, and how the system supports it
Stills from the case study video. The interfaces are illustrated for the video, not screen recordings of the production system; every capability shown is one the system delivers.
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Illustrated in the case study video Every enquiry, tracked
An enquiry is captured once, and the customer receives an SMS with a reference number straight away — so nothing arrives faster than it can be recorded.
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Illustrated in the case study video From first call to the sale
New, contacted, site visit, quoted, won: every call, email and appointment is tracked on the enquiry, all the way to the sale.
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Illustrated in the case study video Quote. Accept. Deposit.
Quotes go out in a few clicks. When the customer accepts online, the deposit invoice follows automatically, straight into the accounting system.
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Illustrated in the case study video Profit, job by job
Every project shows whether it made money, because the system holds the costs as well as the sale.
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Illustrated in the case study video Stock under control
The system sends a reminder when stock needs reordering, before a job stalls.
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Illustrated in the case study video An operating system for growth
Enquiries, pipeline, quotes, invoices, products, projects, stock and staff in one place — in daily use since 2015.
Key decisions
Why it was built this way
The decisions the evidence supports: what needed addressing, what GEMIS chose, why, and what was delivered or observed.
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- Challenge
- Enquiries were arriving faster than anyone could keep track of them.
- Decision
- Make the enquiry the root record, captured once, with an SMS reference sent to the customer immediately.
- Rationale
- A single record that every call, email and appointment hangs off means nothing is lost between tools, and the customer has confirmation without a phone call.
- Evidence or effect
- Delivered, as shown in the case study; the system has been in daily use since 2015.
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- Challenge
- After a quote was accepted, the deposit and the accounting entry depended on someone remembering to raise them.
- Decision
- Online quote acceptance raises the deposit invoice automatically and posts it into the accounting system.
- Rationale
- The hand-offs that leak time are the ones that rely on memory; automating them removes re-keying and the delay before a job can start.
- Evidence or effect
- Delivered, as shown in the case study.
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- Challenge
- Nobody could see which jobs made money.
- Decision
- Hold the costs with the sale and show the profit on every project.
- Rationale
- Management decisions should come from live job data rather than a reconstruction at year-end.
- Evidence or effect
- Delivered, as shown in the case study.
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- Challenge
- A generic package would have forced SBS to work the package’s way.
- Decision
- Design the system around SBS’s own pipeline, but general enough to serve other businesses.
- Rationale
- A system that fits the real sequence of work is the one the business keeps using; a general core lets it serve others without a rewrite.
- Evidence or effect
- The same system became ManaGEM, which about a dozen companies run on today (facts.md).
Validation, delivery and iteration
What the record shows
Delivery and continued use are the validation the repository can evidence. What it cannot, it says.
On record
- The website and campaign work came first (2014); the business system followed in 2015 and has been extended since.
- More than ten years on, SBS still runs its business on the system, and has grown many times over (as stated in the case study).
- The system was generalised into ManaGEM, which is itself in production.
Not documented
- Formal usability testing or user-acceptance records are not in the repository, so none are claimed.
Outcomes and business value
Still running the business on the system GEMIS built, more than ten years on
Delivered work, verified results and intended benefits are kept apart. Nothing here is a metric the client has not confirmed.
Delivered
- A single business system covering enquiry, pipeline, quoting, deposits, project profit and stock
- Automatic SMS references and online quote acceptance for customers
- A live link from accepted quotes into the accounting system
Verified results
- More than ten years on, SBS still runs its business on the system GEMIS built
- SBS has grown many times over since the system went live (as stated in the case study)
- The system became the foundation of ManaGEM
Intended benefits
- No enquiry lost between tools; every lead followed through to a decision
- Less office time spent on quotes, deposits and chasing paperwork
- Management decisions made on profit per job rather than on turnover alone
Built on Microsoft Azure · .NET · SQL · mobile
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Next steps
Selling and delivering jobs from a spreadsheet and three apps? Let’s look at one system for the whole pipeline.
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