Challenge
Eco2 is a creative and open-minded renewable energy company with a practical vision for the future. Their current activities encompass Biomass and emerging technologies such as Tidal Power and they have developed a number of wind projects in the past.
They specialise in initiating, developing, financing and operating renewable energy projects throughout the UK and Europe. These projects are technically complex and involve a lot of stakeholders.
During Eco2’s project financing process, huge quantities of information needs to be shared with potential funders. They wanted to find a way to facilitate and control this flow of information, to ensure people had what they needed, but without giving access to files that were not needed. They also needed to ensure people had the latest iteration of the information. All of this therefore called for a great deal of Document Control.
Key Challenges
- Need to quickly and securely share information
- Accurate records need to be kept of what information has been shared
- The current status of working documents needs to be monitored
- Scalability across many projects
- Easy to use for funders.
Solution
Hobs is the UK’s biggest supplier of Autodesk Buzzsaw software and this was suggested as a solution as it would allow Eco2 to create electronic ‘data-rooms’ for its projects.
The project documentation could be added into the data-rooms and access granted to those requiring it, via a link. Documentation can easily be downloaded by funders for review and Buzzsaw automatically keeps a record of who has downloaded which documents. The software also keeps track of document versions if changes are made to any documents. This provides the ability to look back at the history of how a document has changed.
The Result
Karen Algate from Eco2 is delighted with the solution. “Buzzsaw, from Hobs Studio, has given us clearer, more professional funding process with fewer queries on the source of information. Document versions are tracked with ease which smooth’s the negotiation process and prevents duplicate documents being worked on concurrently.”
As well as helping stakeholders, Buzzsaw is also helping Eco2’s team. “Advisors to the funders can be provided with access to the specific part of the project they are instructed on, preventing other project information from being disseminated too widely in the market and protecting Eco2’s interests. We’re delighted with both the software and the support service from Hobs.”