Architex Global had grown rapidly from a boutique London studio to an 80-person firm with offices in New York and Dubai. But their operational systems were stuck in 2018.
The Challenge: Growth Breaking the System
Growth is good, but it exposes the cracks in your foundation. Architex was running three offices on three different sets of spreadsheets. Project Managers were manually duplicating data from their design software into finance tools, leading to a "Frankenstein" data structure.
The core issues were:
- Siloed Finance: Invoices were being raised in Xero, but project milestones were tracked in Asana. 15% of billable variations were being missed entirely.
- Resource Blindness: The Directors had no real-time view of staff capacity across the three time zones.
- Manual Reporting: The Ops Director spent 2 days every month manually compiling the Board Report.
The Solution: Architectural Integration
Edderton Scott was engaged to map, re-architect, and build a unified operating system. We didn't rip everything out; we built intelligent bridges between best-in-class tools.
Automated triggers ensure data flows one-way, validating accuracy at every step.
Phase 1: Validation & Cleaning
Before automation, we needed standardization. We standardized the "Project Code" logic across all three offices, ensuring that a project in New York followed the same data schema as a project in London. This allowed us to merge the datasets into a central data warehouse.
Phase 2: The Automation Layer
We implemented a middleware solution using Make.com to handle the logic that software APIs often miss. Now, when a 'Won Opportunity' occurs in Salesforce:
- A project folder is auto-created in Google Drive with correct permissions.
- The project is set up in the Resource Planning tool.
- A deposit invoice draft is created in Xero for Finance approval.
"For the first time in five years, I can look at a dashboard on Monday morning and know exactly where we stand globally. The clarity is addictive."
— Sarah Jenkins, COO at Architex GlobalThe Outcome
The system went live in Q3 2024. The immediate impact was the elimination of double-entry. Project Managers reclaimed approximately 5 hours per week previously spent on admin—time that is now billable.