Sablono is a German construction technology company providing the world’s first production management and project controls system for managing progress, quality and costs in large and complex construction projects. Founded in 2013, the company is currently focusing on international growth in regions such as Europe and the Middle East.
Recently, Sablono won its first project in Asunción, Paraguay – a region the startup had not really focused on as yet. But thanks to Sablono’s Customer Success Manager Mario Samson who had joined the company in 2017 this was about to change.
Mario Samson grew up in Paraguay and moved to the United States at the age of 16 for a sport’s scholarship. He started studying Civil Engineering at the University of Central Florida and his interest in stunning infrastructure and working with people exposed him to both design and construction management. Early on in his career, Mario experienced a void in collaborative and data-driven construction management systems, the same void that the founders of Sablono felt back in 2013 when they decided to start the company.
And as luck would have it, one day Mario and Sablono’s co-founder Lukas ended up attending the same SAP Conference in Orlando. When they met, Mario told Lukas about his idea to become a software developer. Lukas, however, saw a different potential. He felt that Mario would be much more effective when he was put into a position in which he could work with people rather than computers. He thought that with the insights and experience Mario had gained on site, he would be the right guy to help other project managers executing their digital transformation processes.
A few months later, Mario found himself standing in the Sablono office in Berlin after Lukas had vaguely invited him to swing by whenever he would be in Europe. His strong will to change the way people work in construction resonated with the founders and just days after stepping into the office for the first time Mario joined the company as Sablono’s new Customer Success Manager for international projects.
It was perfect timing. After just a few training sessions in Berlin, Mario flew over to London to support the implementation of the platform on the iconic Greenwich Peninsula project with Mace. He helped the team to onboard various subcontractors leading to a much higher frequency of progress updates and increased quality of field data in just a few days.
Since, Mario has driven the implementation process in many other large projects in Sablono’s core markets predominately focusing on the UK. In July 2019, however, he decided to take a little break and go on a trip to his home country Paraguay to visit his family. Little did he know that work would follow him.
One day, as Mario was driving through Asunción, he came past a large development site just blocks away from what used to be his home. The project was called Feel Asunción and was managed by the Paraguayan main contractor CCI S.A. In the blink of an eye, Mario had this idea in mind. Wouldn’t it be great if he could help with the execution of this amazing project and at the same time bring Sablono’s Construction Management Platform to the Paraguayan market?
“At the age of 16, I moved from Paraguay to Miami, always having the goal in mind of being able to contribute to the development of Paraguay in the future.”
One of Mario’s friends, Nicolas Zabrodiec, helped him on his mission to contact the top tier contractors in Paraguay, CCI SA being among them. Luckily, it only took days to set up a meeting and Mario got his chance to present his ideas to the executive team at CCI. The audience was impressed by Mario’s demonstration and likewise, was he impressed by their understanding of innovation and new technologies in construction. It was obvious for both parties that they were sharing a common vision.
Just a few phone calls later Mario received the final approval by CCI SA. He started working with the project team right away and he first handed saw how much everyone value technology. The whole team embraced and supported the on-boarding process in order to get things off the ground as fast as possible. Today, thanks to work of Mario and the team at CCI SA, Sablono’s first project in South America is fully set-up, online and ready to be built!
“You could feel their team was very advanced in their use of technology and already had a vision aligned with Sablono.”
Apart from this first project, the market in Paraguay appears to be a promising one for Sablono. Many other companies have also shown interest in adopting the solution while Paraguay’s economy continues to develop showing strong growth in the construction sector.
Sablono’s vision to optimise and digitise construction processes to improve the quality of field data in project controls will continue to spread. Maybe even more so with the help of the people in Paraguay who embrace, understand and share this vision.