MELBOURNE - JULY 18, 2023 – Australian construction software company HammerTech is expanding its global footprint, opening offices in the UK and Ireland and increasing its presence in New Zealand.
Launching in 2015 as a startup, HammerTech already has a significant imprint on the Australian construction landscape with 85% of the top 100 builders in Australia using its digital platform to consolidate safety and site management solutions and processes into a paperless system. Expansion in 2018 saw HammerTech enter the US market with its first client, DPR, still firmly entrenched in the HammerTech community today.
More than 3 million worker inductions completed and over 400 construction contractors use its platform, supporting $100 billion in annual construction volume across more than 15,000 projects since inception. Last year, it was identified by LaunchVic as a potential unicorn (a reference to a company hitting a $1 billion valuation). With a strong trajectory 51% revenue growth rate YoY, 94% retention rate, headcount increases have followed with almost 100 employees now across Australia, North America, Canada, UK, Ireland and New Zealand.
Company Co-founder and CEO Ben Leach said that further global expansion was a logical next step built on its success in the Australian and US market.
“We were already making inroads in New Zealand but Covid slowed that momentum as we were unable to enter the country. We are excited that we can continue our investment in New Zealand to support growth in this market,” Mr Leach said.
HammerTech entered the New Zealand market in 2020 and is undergoing significant expansion with leading construction companies such as Mansons TCLM, LT McGuinness and Icon using its platform.
“The increase in workplace injuries and accidents on construction sites is concerning. Our mission of helping make sites safer has focused on developing solutions that solve real problems. We seek to enable those in the field with technology that helps them do their tasks without being anchored in the office, and is designed to improve site collaboration and communication by involving subcontractors. The inherent benefit is the creation of real-time data analytics. Insights to such data helps teams with better decision making and ultimately improves safety performance and culture,” Mr Leach says.
New Zealand WorkSafe statistics show injuries resulting in more than a week away from work in the construction sector totalled 5,880 in 2022 (up from 5,826 in 2021). There were 12 fatalities in 2022 and 12 in 2021.
Daniel O’Connor, the HSE Manager at LT McGuinness said that with all its data now in the one place, the company is using it to improve their systems and procedures. “We understand so much more around our business and how it is working.”
“Everything is at our fingertips. We are creating dashboards to present to the directors, to site management teams and external parties. Some clients need monthly OH&S reports which were quite onerous but are now just the push of a button. It has made that process massively efficient.”
LT McGuinness is not only saving time but also costs. Board reports on OH&S performance usually took a couple of weeks to compile. Now there is a live dashboard which can be seen anytime.
One of the immediate benefits is there is now a distinction between injuries and incidents. In the past when an incident was reported it was seen as an injury but now LT McGuinness is able to track them as distinct occurrences.
“There are several reasons for going with HammerTech as our platform. The big thing for us was it is a construction-centric platform and it didn’t need to be completely customised. It meant we were able to roll it out quickly. We knew that if we went for a customised system it would have involved a lot more testing which we didn’t want to get into. It is expensive and takes time and potentially a worse product.”
"One of the things we are looking forward to is now there is an increased presence (of HammerTech) in New Zealand we look forward to further customising some of these tools to adapt to a NZ context."
After spending the last 4 years with HammerTech in Australia, Patrick Godfrey has been appointed Head of Sales for the UK and Ireland. “It’s known that health and safety within construction has plateaued over the past decade. But things need to change as it’s still one of the most dangerous environments to work in.
“HammerTech is embedding health and safety across all staff from contractors and subcontractors to head office staff, making everyone accountable and safety a number one priority. “
Mr Leach said as the company beds down its UK operations, the focus on Australia, the US and Canada won’t waiver as HammerTech continues to innovate and support safety in construction through technology across all these regions.
For PR enquiries, please contact:
Australia: Grant Titmus | grant@sumitmedia.com.au | 0419 388 161
New Zealand: Scott Kara | scott@boydpr.co.nz | 027 431 7052
Image caption: HammerTech senior leadership team L-R: Adam Hobbs, Wynand Stassen, Georgia Bergers, Ben Leach, Michael Goldstein and James Harris. Credit: Heather Leven Photography
About HammerTech
HammerTech is a software platform that simplifies more safety and site operations paperwork processes than any other platform on the market. It was created by construction and technology professionals and it mines digital processes to provide leading preventative safety insights to specifically solve construction’s unique safety problems.
HammerTech was founded in Melbourne in 2015 with the aim of making construction sites safer, and the system has been designed to support unique company requirements while improving the visibility, timeliness and accuracy of data. The platform speeds up administrative tasks such as permits management by up to 57 percent, enabling staff to spend more time onsite focussed on mission-critical tasks and less time on paperwork.
For more information, go to www.hammertech.com.