Growing without hiring: systems for the office work every new job adds
Every new job adds logs, reports and admin to the office. Strategyc installs systems you own that draft that work for your coordinators and project managers to check, so the team you have can carry more jobs.
$3,000, credited in full toward your install if you go ahead within 30 days.
TL;DR
Growing without hiring means getting more jobs through the office with your current team. Much of the office work each new job adds is coordination: submittal logs, job cost reports, pay app backup and meeting notes. A system can draft a lot of it for your coordinators to check. You'll still need to hire for the field. Strategyc's $3,000 audit names which work a system can take. It's credited in full against an install commissioned within 30 days.
What is capacity without headcount?
Capacity without headcount means taking on more work without adding staff, by moving the repeatable part of office work to systems your current team checks and runs.
It applies to office work. A system can draft a submittal log, a job cost report or a three-week look-ahead from data you already have. It can't frame a wall or run a crew. It's built for the team you have, in a market where the next hire is hard to find.
Which office work grows with every job you add?
- Submittal and RFI logs.
- Job cost reports and the work-in-progress schedule at month-end.
- Pay application backup.
- Meeting minutes and three-week look-ahead schedules.
- Closeout binders.
- The weekly report your project manager writes on Sunday night.
Each new job adds more of it. Count the office hours one typical job takes from award to closeout, then multiply by the jobs you'd take on if you could staff them.
Can the weekly job reports put themselves together?
Usually, if the data already exists somewhere. A weekly job report pulls from the same places every time: the schedule, the cost report, the daily logs and the open RFIs.
A system can gather that data on a schedule and draft the report for your project manager to edit. We run automated reporting across our own companies.
Which jobs still need a hire?
Field roles. A system won't frame, wire, pour or supervise. If the people you can't find are foremen, superintendents or project managers, this won't fill those seats. It takes office work off the people you already have, so each of them can run more jobs.
Some roles are judgment all day, like estimating the big jobs or managing a difficult owner. Those stay with people too.
What did one research run produce in a few hours?
Reporting is one kind of office capacity. Research is another: the work an estimating assistant would do if anyone had the hours.
firms profiled in depth
public bids tracked, 16 over $10M
of runtime
compute cost
One run, built for an anonymized construction-sector operator, took a few hours and about $140 of compute. It profiled 66 firms in depth and tracked 130 public bids, 16 of them over $10M, with every bid linked back to the agency that published it. A separate adversarial QA pass checked the 114-page result before it shipped.
It was produced as a work sample for an operator we work with directly. We cite only what it delivered.
Should you rent, buy or build more office capacity?
There are three ways to get office work done without a new hire. The last row shows where each one fits.
| Comparison area | Rent an agency | Buy software | Build and own (Strategyc install) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | An outsourced admin or virtual-assistant service working on their systems | Separate tools for scheduling, reporting and documents, each set up and run by your team | Systems that draft your logs, reports and admin from the data you already have, on your accounts |
| Who sets it up | The service | Your project managers, in the time they don't have | Strategyc, from your audit, with your team trained to check and run it |
| What it costs | A monthly retainer. At $5,000 a month, that's $60,000 a year, every year. | Per seat or per month, for as long as you use it | $12,000 to $35,000 per system, one time, after a $3,000 audit credited in full if you go ahead within 30 days |
| What you own | Nothing, once you stop paying | Your data, inside their product | The system, the accounts, the data and the runbook |
| If you stop paying | It stops the same day | You lose the tool and the setup your team put into it | It keeps running. Managed operations is optional and you can cancel anytime. |
| Best when | The work is generic and you're comfortable with someone outside the business handling it | One tool covers the work and your team has time to set it up | The work is specific to how you run jobs and the people who'd set up a tool are the ones already stretched |
Whoever you talk to, ask what still runs the day you stop paying them.
How does Strategyc add office capacity without a hire?
We scope it from the audit, build the system at the top of the map on your accounts and train the people who'll check its work.
The audit is one working session with Alastair, then a written map of where AI removes cost, hours or lag in your operation. It names the systems, ranks them by payback and puts them in build order, with a buy-vs-build call on each. If the numbers don't clear the bar for an install, you get that in writing too.
What it costs
- AI Opportunity Audit: $3,000. It becomes your first payment on the build if you go ahead within 30 days, while the map is current.
- AI System Install: $12,000 to $35,000 per system, one time.
- Managed AI Operations: optional, $1,500 to $6,000 a month, cancel anytime. The system keeps running if you cancel.
Every install is scoped by proposal from your audit, and the price changes only if the scope does.
The guarantee
For reporting, a good pass-or-fail line is simple: the weekly report is complete by a time you choose, with nobody assembling it.
Your scope document sets a go-live date and a pass-or-fail line for every system in it. Miss the date and we keep building at our own cost until it works as scoped. If we still can't deliver it, we refund the install and you keep everything we built, in your accounts, with the documentation.
We take on two to three installs per quarter. Build weeks are blocked in advance, so installs start on fixed dates.
Every install is scoped and led by Alastair Macartney, Strategyc's founder. He's a former British Army Major who directed the UK's Defence Courier Service. More about Alastair
The full offer, the audit and how the guarantee works are laid out on our AI implementation partner page.
What do owners ask about growing without hiring?
The audit is $3,000, credited in full toward the install if you go ahead within 30 days. Each system costs $12,000 to $35,000, one time. The audit decides which system comes first.
The audit takes one to two weeks. A single system is typically a few weeks of build once it's scoped. The go-live date goes in your scope document, and the guarantee is tied to that date.
Put your own numbers side by side. Write down what the hire you can't find would cost in a year and how long your last search took. Set that against a one-time install that keeps running whether or not we're involved.
They will if it saves them time and they trust what it produces. Training is part of the install, and it's written into the guarantee.
Which office work can a system take?
Before the call
Count the office hours one typical job takes from award to closeout.
Apply for the AI Opportunity Audit
A working session with the founder, plus a written map of where AI pays off in your specific operation, ranked by payback. $3,000, credited in full toward your install if you go ahead within 30 days. We run a small number of these each month. If your numbers clearly fit, you'll see the calendar straight away. If it's not obvious either way, Alastair reads the application himself and replies within one business day.