Elite Construction + Development builds success and a connected workplace with Microsoft Teams

Starting with the right foundation

The company is the result of two young entrepreneurs with a vision. J. Trinidad Garibay (Trini) and David Magaña founded Elite Construction + Development in 2008 from a home office in Pasco, Washington. Now grown to 70-plus employees, the company is a testament to the out-of-the-box thinking they’ve applied to the construction industry. “We are grateful for customers who keep us engaged, push us to grow, and challenge us,” says Garibay, Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder at Elite. Adds Elite Cofounder and Chief Operations Officer David Magaña, “We believe in other businesses that have been doing this for much longer than we have. We’re focused on creating lasting legacies.” 

The company’s high standards and progressive outlook have won its support not just from local residential and commercial customers, but from government entities that require high security clearances and protocols, like the nearby Hanford nuclear site cleanup project. 

Managing the challenges of a growing business

Managing a thriving business is challenging enough without the added complexity of managing disparate technologies. “Small businesses are bombarded with software technologies that do great things individually,” says Garibay. “However, those diverse technologies eventually multiply and make work less enjoyable and less efficient. That frustration can cause employees to turn away from technology.” 

When Elite became overwhelmed with a dozen or more overlapping platforms, it decided to consolidate to Microsoft 365, retaining only one third-party solution—its specialized accounting software. The company uses Microsoft 365 apps for every other function in the company—creating content, managing projects, scheduling, collaboration, and even telephony. “Microsoft has done an amazing job in connecting an entire platform,” says Garibay. “We save a lot of time and effort by combining Microsoft 365, Azure, and Surface devices in one consolidated landscape, and Microsoft Teams is our central collaboration hub.” 

Raising the telephony bar with Teams Phone

Garibay and Magaña never forget the role that strong communication has played in their success. That’s why they envisioned a unified system that could tie multiple forms of communication together to support collaboration. But initially, that solution didn’t exist. 

After a frustrating year with the company’s previous traditional telephony provider, management was relieved to discover the capabilities of Teams Phone, as was Elite’s IT Systems Administrator Luis Lopez. “The contrast of our company before implementing Teams and Teams Phone and now is like night and day,” he says. “After trying an expensive VOIP system that didn’t serve our needs, we have a centralized communication system that is easy to use.” 

Elite’s emphasis on polite customer service and seamless collaboration demanded a system that could connect callers with the right person and minimal rerouting or waiting. The company enthusiastically embraced the Teams Phone ability to assign unique business numbers to workers within Teams that connect with their personal cellular devices. They receive calls through Teams directly to the device they’re already carrying, without exposing their personal telephone number, which protects worker privacy while enhancing customer experience. “Teams-based phone numbers were a big step for us,” asserts Maria Rodriguez, Digital Media and Marketing Specialist at Elite. “Now, it’s easy to reach Elite team members directly without using their personal mobile device numbers.” 

Often working on site with multiple groups and data, Elite Project Engineer Priscilla Wright uses Teams Phone to add the personal dimension to her work. “I use Teams to make phone calls or initiate video chats with my teammates, and I can share my screen at the same time so that we can look at drawings together,” she says. “Teams is more than just a call or text capability—it’s a one-stop shop that keeps the team working together.” 

Lopez appreciates the range of benefits that Elite derives from that unified approach. “The ease of use we have with Teams Phone is simply amazing,” he says. “It’s simple to assign a Teams phone number from the Teams Admin Portal to any of our staff. Since it’s connected to Teams and not a specific device, they can answer that call from their Surface or personal phone.” There are unexpected benefits, too. “The auto attendant feature—it’s like a digital receptionist—has been a great help. Spam calls have decreased since we started using Teams Phone,” he adds.

Extending Teams collaboration to everyone, everywhere

The company now collaborates more easily with communication united on one platform that works for everyone, whether they’re office-based, on the road, or out of state. “Microsoft Teams is a fantastic way for us to have conversations with people inside and outside the organization,” says Garibay. “It’s very exciting that we can bring people into a conversation or a virtual meeting so easily with the Teams calling capabilities while ensuring a positive experience for everyone.” 

That collaboration takes several forms throughout Elite. As the only IT support for more than 40 office staff members, Lopez is all about efficiency. He can now support employees from anywhere through screen sharing, and he can fix issues in the moment or triage problems for further in-person attention, which was vital in the hybrid work model that Elite adopted during COVID-19. Now valued employees can work from afar, whether in the field or in the case of a few employees who moved out of state. “The efficiencies I gain from our unified Microsoft 365 platform free me up to experiment and research technologies so that I can make the greatest possible contribution to moving Elite forward,” he says. 

It can be tough to orchestrate checking on safety regulations across multiple construction sites while also working with administrators at various agencies, but Alexia Gamboa, an Environmental Safety and Health Specialist at Elite, has technology on her side. “I rely on Microsoft applications to stay in touch with everyone I work with.” Teams is Gamboa’s go-to application for keeping the company’s Safety Committee collaborating smoothly. “I just love the remote communication capability in Teams and that people don’t have to commute to meetings, which saves us time and gas,” she says. “Dispensing information with screen sharing or links in chat is so easy, and we can now share files in whatever way works for everyone, whether in OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams.” 

Staying current with Microsoft 365 apps within Teams

Elite uses Teams as a central launchpad for other Microsoft productivity apps like Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Forms. “Planner is a godsend,” remarks Garibay. “We use it to efficiently track our progress across projects and teams.” He celebrates the creativity the company applies to its use of Planner, such as in merging tasks from Microsoft To Do with Planner to prioritize work. “We created a decision matrix that groups tasks from To Do in lists according to importance,” he explains. “Those tasks show up in order of priority in each person’s Planner so that the list isn’t overwhelming. Teams is our gateway to productivity apps like Planner—it becomes a communication dashboard of pure effectiveness.” 

Gamboa uses Forms to simplify and track routine tasks. For example, she replaced the paper vehicle safety inspection forms that used to require travel time to deliver to the office. And Forms automatically generates and sends a QR code through Teams to alert her that a safety check is complete. She also streamlined her requests with the Procurement department. “I access the purchase request form in Teams, and it notifies the Procurement department while creating a communication trail about the purchase,” she says. “I don’t have to jump from one platform to another to find the information that I need. I’m so much more productive with Teams.” 

That connectedness extends from day-to-day tasks to Elite’s entire Microsoft ecosystem, including Dynamics 365 for customer relationship management and Azure. “Security is the foremost consideration for our government work, like the Hanford’s DOE site,” says Garibay. “We’re accepted for those high-security projects because we can demonstrate that with Azure, our security is up to spec.”

Amplifying productivity with Microsoft power tools

The company standardized on Surface Pro 5-LTE originally, and it now supplies Surface Pro 8 devices to its staff. Mobile office personnel like Gamboa love taking their virtual offices wherever they go, staying in touch even in low-connectivity areas. 

Rodriguez recalls her last device, which was a large, bulky device with two monitors. “Now, I use a Surface Laptop Studio—a beautiful, streamlined device that’s much more powerful than the last one and easily runs the most complex creative software,” she says. It goes along with her onsite visits, too. “I can take photos with my mobile device, use it as a hotspot, and do whatever I need to do from a construction truck, even in a remote area,” she adds. 

Elite teams extend Surface device technical capability and Teams convenience with Surface Hub 2S, created to support the creativity and productivity of hybrid teams. “When a team in the field needs to collaborate with headquarters to solve an issue, they work together in real time via Teams on our Surface Hub 2S,” explains Lopez. “We use the whiteboard feature to mark up drawings, brainstorm, and identify any other ways to improve and create change orders for the project.” 

At the end of the day, it’s about Elite’s employees. “Technology defines the employee experience,” concludes Garibay. “I can’t say enough about what our teams accomplish through the connected collaboration they enjoy with Microsoft solutions.” 

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