Kongiwe Environmental went from managing 15 to over 50 projects with the same staff by implementing a purpose-built project management system. Discover how real-time visibility helped them scale, stay profitable, and futureproof their operations.
“When we met Fresh Projects, we had our hands full with 15 projects. Today we're running 50+ projects with the same staff base. This software came just at the right time for us.”
A story of growth. Through some of the toughest times.
Kongiwe Environmental went from a "doing okay" startup to a thriving industry contender in five short years. They attribute their ability to harness and fuel this growth trajectory partly to Fresh Projects, which gave them a centralised system to track and control their projects and find clear answers to their most critical financial management questions.
This feature highlights how the firm used Fresh Projects to navigate and adapt during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the tools, insights, and operational clarity they gained continue to serve them in facing today’s economic pressures, resource constraints, and planning challenges.
"With FreshProjects we were able to turn the lights on in our business.” - Bradly Thornton, CEO, Kongiwe Environmental
Kongiwe Environmental had been operating for 2 years, and as management described it, "things were going okay". They were making enough money to pay the bills and business was steady. But, they had blind spots. And if they were to grow, they knew these needed attention.
In essence the business was running on a gut feel. Fees were calculated based on what they thought was reasonable, they had no real view of project profitability, nor of actual staff productivity and forecasting was very uncertain.
They also had potential for costly errors, with information scattered between different team members and across multiple spreadsheets. Invoicing and reconciliation was done manually in excel, leaving plenty of opportunity for mistakes.
All things synonymous with starting out. But, crippling to growth and profitability in the long run.
“Fresh Projects enabled us to scale-up the business with sight of potential pitfalls well in advance."
With the onboarding of Fresh Projects complete (this only took them a week to do so with the guided onboarding service), Kongiwe started gearing up for growth. Now they had a centralised information system that was current and informing.
“Now we present fees with absolute confidence.”
Project fees and budgets were calculated via an informed costing model, time and expenses were tracked against projects and instantly they had a real time view of the projects and business' financial health.
This immediately gave them insight as to which employees were productive, which clients were profitable and which work streams were driving growth.
“Implementing Fresh Projects was a pivotal moment for us in understanding and knowing our business.”
As the business began to grow, the now established Fresh Project tools were gaining momentum and delivering increasing insight and value to Kongiwe.
One of the more sobering effects was the profitability tracker. This empowered the company on many occasions to correct a project path or make resourcing decisions early on before significant consequences.
“It's given us the information needed to survive the Pandemic - and that was crucial.”
As the Covid-19 Pandemic shocked the globe, the question on all business owners' lips was "Can we survive this?". Bradly Thornton, Kongiwe CEO, attributes surviving the pandemic to decisions made based on business data provided by Fresh Projects. Not only did they keep their doors open, but they retained all their staff too.
Fresh Projects gave them the insight and confidence during the toughest times of the pandemic, that their cash flow would sustain their operations, and their weighted pipeline was sufficient to recover lost revenues over the lockdown and result in a profitable 2021.
