Bringing democratization and visibility to project management with AirSaas- GT Solutions

Before/After AirSaaS

The context

With over seventy years' experience in the chauffeur-driven vehicle rental market, the company also offers specialized value-added distribution throughout France, as well as regional, national and international chartering.

GT solutions is run by Matthieu Sarrat, the founder's great-grandson, and has 1,900 employees and sales of 220 million euros.

The Challenge: putting an end to complicated project monitoring

A simple project governance solution for heterogeneous teams

“I'm delighted to be using it, it meets my needs!”. This is what Philippe Horillo, CIO of GT Solutions, has to say about his first experience with AirSaas.io. GT Solutions started using AirSaas.io about six months ago. At the time, project progress monitoring was patchy. Today GT Solutions has “a sufficiently macro view to be able to report on progress with high-level reporting without getting lost in all the details.”

Stressing the pragmatic side of the solution, he notes that “its ease of use saves the team time and reduces the obstacles to its adoption”.

Mentioning the possibilities offered through portfolio views, he notes that “Using AirSaas brings great visibility”. In his experience, “the solution streamlines exchanges, reduces technical complexity and makes it easier for people with a lesser appetite for these subjects to get on board”.

"We can clearly see the key elements of project management: points of attention, decisions, monitoring of milestones, expenses, etc.  Capex and Opex are clearly visible. When there's a risk, you can see it quickly, and that puts the teams on alert".

He notes that “this encourages a little more discipline and method. Turning, for example, to the consolidation of attention points and decision points, he stresses their importance: “The tool has the virtue of memory. Nothing is forgotten, it's there! When you check it out, you remember everything.”

How did business units engage with AirSaaS?

According to him, the platform is “a good way of getting project managers and business lines on board, without the constraints of Gantt diagrams”.  To track project management tasks, GT Solutions has created links to existing Planner Teams. It should be noted that AirSaas is synchronized to track milestones only.

Philippe also notes that the simplicity of obtaining a global view encourages teams to feed the solution at the right level of detail. He sums up: “I find the tool highly relevant.”

Does Corporate Management use Airsaas?

“Yes, I follow the progress of the project portfolio with the General Manager.”  Philippe confides in us that he is “sensitive to this more pragmatic and transparent approach.”

Our CIO has the intuition that “later on, it will make sense and be of value to do it at the level of the whole company.” For now, he moves forward and confirms to us that “feedback is planned when I report on the activity.”

“It goes totally hand in hand with our constant improvement approach,” Philippe Horrillo points out. "AirSaas comes in as a steering and governance facilitator."

Bonus section

What's AirSaas' main strength?

“Instead of taking on project governance via a restrictive tool, we take teams along in a pragmatic way,” remarks Philippe Horrillo. He underlines a strength: “It doesn't take up too much of the team's time. And the collaborative aspect of the tool is appreciated.” A second key point is highlighted by Philippe Horrillo: “Customer support is top-notch! It's important to underline this in this adoption phase."

What's your favorite feature?

“I really liked the closing function, the project review assistance embedded in the solution,” says Philippe. “It's very interesting and educational, because it's often a neglected stage. The fact that it's part of the project lifecycle pushes us to do it, it's very useful."
Indeed, if the improvement and retrospective process is not included from the outset and led/guided to a final conclusion, the review, seen as an additional (or even useless) burden, will not be possible.

How do you calculate the ROI of AirSaaS?

Philippe talks about his approach to project governance and the need for transparency: “As CIO, I strive to open the black box and make all subjects accessible. AirSaas contributes to this, as it gives very clear visibility of finances, workload and progress.This contributes to the efficiency of our commitments."

What are your next steps with AirSaaS?

“For the moment, we're focusing on the pure project side of the solution". Eventually, he plans to also synchronize budgetary aspects from the Finance IS. “We plan to synchronize project codes using the API offered by AirSaas. In this way, we will be able to monitor real-time consumption via the recovery of invoices for each project”.

A big THANK YOU again to Philippe for this precious testimony on our solution. As is often the case, our customers are the ones who talk about it best! 💙

Bio Express box - Philippe Horillo

CIO of GT Solutions since 2018. He was previously CIO at Groupe Labrenne, Groupe Mauffrey and PwC.

A graduate of ESSEC, Philippe is a specialist in information systems management, strategic alignment and their urbanization.

He also has expertise in organizational management.

Strong experience in certification operations and change management, “Quality Management System Auditor / Advanced EMS Auditor Course” (IRCA / IEMA training), trainer, process mapping, quality management...

‍