Helping build efficient communication channels at Cosmopolitan Projects

About Cosmopolitan Projects

Cosmopolitan Projects was established in 1992 and is currently the largest affordable housing property developer in South Africa. They’ve delivered more than 38,000 new affordable houses in that time. These homes are developed within world-class model cities, with many essential lifestyle amenities such as private schools, crèches, clinics, shopping centres, transport hubs, recreational parks, and more.

What’s Changing

Cosmopolitan is a large business that has grown to the point of having over 1,000 people spread across multiple offices and sites, in 2 of the country’s most populated provinces (states). The company is growing beyond the means of keeping track of who’s who - especially when certain business units don’t interact regularly, or people are out on sites - and how best to locate or contact the right person.

What’s Needed

A resource that allows teams across all locations to locate people by sight - to have a visual aid tied to a name - but could also allow employees to navigate by region, office, department and find the person they needed. Up until this point, contact resources like Outlook presented issues and were a burden on the IT team and lacked ease of use on mobile devices.

How Names & Faces is Helping

Names & Faces is providing a visual aide for teams who have been out of the office due to the COVID-19 pandemic but still working in a variety of capacities, who need to stay in touch easily. With both in-office and remote teams, the IT department can link direct or mobile contacts where necessary - all managed from a Google Sheet and represented in both their web and native mobile apps. The management of the data extends across offices and departments so that both the HR and IT teams can ensure the necessary information is visible to the right teams. 
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“Normally when you meet people, you don’t know what they do outside of their job and you don’t always have the time to ask a lot of questions, but with Names & Faces I can see more detail, and know who the rest of their team is and how they fit in. It’s so easy. I work in the background, in a Google Sheet, and it works wonderfully. It’s instant, not sitting there for days and months trying to build something from scratch. I see Names & Faces as my own as if it was built personally for me. We don’t want to just sit with the product, we want to help progress and evolve the system and the Names & Faces team is great with that. They work with us, offering support and suggestions to help us improve.”‍

Raymond Caswell, IT & Systems Manager, Cosmopolitan Projects