By centralizing content, automating page layouts, and enabling consistent branding, XaitProposal has helped Lhotellier pool its best content, enhance visual rendering, and improve the coherence of its sales literature—leading to higher quality bids and positive customer feedback.
Lhotellier, a century-old family group, operates across 8 areas of expertise, including public works, construction, water, decontamination, and real estate development. With 1,700 employees in France and Canada and expected sales of €250 million by 2020, producing consistent, high-quality technical briefs and tenders is crucial for their diverse operations.
Region
France
Company size
1700
Industry
Construction
Solution
XaitProposal
For years, managing these diverse document needs using traditional tools resulted in fragmented content and inconsistent branding—until they discovered XaitProposal.
Margaux Aviez, Research Officer at Lhotellier, explains how her team moved from struggling with unharmonized Word documents to consistently producing visually appealing and highly qualitative bids that impress clients and drive internal engagement.
"Radically Different": The Bid Chaos Before XaitProposal
Before XaitProposal was implemented, preparing technical briefs at Lhotellier was a fragmented and inconsistent process, heavily reliant on Microsoft Word. Documents produced by different public works agencies varied significantly in both content and form.
About Lhotellier
Lhotellier is a century-old family group with expertise spanning public works, construction, water management, decontamination, deconstruction, asbestos removal, materials and industry, real estate development, and energy. With a significant presence in France and Canada, the group employs 1,700 people.
“Xait's support in terms of method and training contributed to the smooth adoption of the tool.”
– Margaux Aviez, Research Officer at Lhotellier
"Previously, we were writing our technical briefs in Word. We couldn't harmonize them. The documents produced by our public works agencies were radically different, both in content and form," explains Margaux Aviez. Lhotellier faced key challenges in drafting its bids:
- Lack of Harmonization: A strong need to standardize documents across various agencies, which were producing radically different content and formats.
- Pooling Best Practices: A desire to consolidate the best elements from various briefs to create a unified, high-quality standard.
- Visual Inconsistency: A clear need to improve the visual rendering of their sales literature to present a more professional image.
- Coherence in Sales Literature: Bringing a unified message and look to all client-facing documents.
Manual Headaches: The Cost of Inconsistency
Before XaitProposal, Lhotellier's bid creation process was marked by:
- Fragmented Content: The inability to pool the best content meant valuable information was siloed and not consistently applied.
- Brand Inconsistency: Documents lacked a unified graphic identity, diminishing the overall professional perception of Lhotellier.
- Manual Formatting Burden: Significant time was spent on manual layout and design, which often didn't achieve the desired visual quality or consistency.
- Repetitive Work: Teams were likely duplicating efforts due to the lack of a standardized and automated solution.
“We have an automated page layout that gives us a graphic look that we didn't have before.”
– Margaux Aviez, Research Officer at Lhotellier
"The Wow Effect": XaitProposal Transforms Lhotellier's Bids
Lhotellier was won over by XaitProposal's innovative approach, which offered far more than simple Word macros. The "wow effect" of the automated layout, the intelligent questionnaire, and the overall ergonomics of the software solution were key decision factors.
XaitProposal is now primarily used by 35 people in the design offices for writing technical briefs. Since March 2020, 250 bids have been produced using the solution. These documents mainly include responses to public tenders, but also technical briefs for large private contracts—a new capability for Lhotellier. They also hope to extend its use to other activities and technical documents like PPSPSs.
Here's how XaitProposal made a difference:
- Automated Layout & Graphic Identity: Branding On Autopilot "We have an automated page layout that gives us a graphic look that we didn't have before." This ensures a consistent and professional visual rendering across all documents, eliminating the previous manual challenges.
- Focus on Value-Added Content: More Strategy, Less Drudgery XaitProposal allows Lhotellier to "refocus on value-added content." Core elements like company presentation, mini CVs, and operating procedures are parameterized and automated within the tool. This frees up time to personalize the offer and fine-tune critical, value-adding sections.
- Intelligent Questionnaire & Ergonomics: Bidding Made Easy The software's intelligent questionnaire and overall user-friendliness were major selling points, making the process of drafting bids significantly easier for users.
- Smooth Adoption & Support: Even the Skeptics are Convinced! While any new tool requires adaptation, "Xait's support in terms of method and training contributed to the smooth adoption of the tool." Today, even initially reluctant users wouldn't want to go back!
Winning Feedback: From Clients and Engaged Teams
The implementation of XaitProposal has yielded significant benefits and positive feedback.
From customers, especially for technical briefs in private bids (which Lhotellier didn't do before), the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive: "we've never seen a technical brief like this before! At last it's different, it doesn't feel like copy and paste anymore, it's very qualitative." This has resulted in "very good marks for the technical brief."
Internally, the impact is equally profound: "it's virtuous: we feel we're reinvesting ourselves in this subject," indicating renewed engagement and pride in their work.
“Previously, we were writing our technical briefs in Word. We couldn't harmonize them. The documents produced by our public works agencies were radically different, both in content and form”
– Margaux Aviez, Research Officer at Lhotellier
Quality Elevated, Efficiency Soars: Strategic Expansion Ahead
XaitProposal has not only transformed Lhotellier's bid creation process but also opened new strategic avenues. The ability to easily create high-quality technical briefs for private contracts is a direct result of the tool's capabilities.
Next Steps: Achieving Total Document Harmony
Lhotellier has clear next steps for continuous improvement and broader adoption of XaitProposal:
- Achieve total harmonization across all our written documents.
- Finalize the technical brief, then the PPSPS.
- Eventually, move on to defence documents and other activities to standardize all internal and external communication.