How LantroTech Approaches IT Estimation for Seamless Client Collaboration

Accurate IT estimation isn’t just about numbers, it’s about trust, transparency, and setting your project up for success before the first cable is even plugged in. Imagine planning a server room without knowing how many cables, switches, or racks you need. Chaos, delays, and hidden costs would follow. That’s why estimation matters, it’s the invisible first step that brings clarity, aligns expectations, and ensures every decision that follows is built on a solid foundation.

The Invisible First Step: Where Success Begins

Before a server is powered on, before a single cable touches a rack, there’s a quiet but critical phase that defines the entire project: estimation. It’s invisible to most, yet it can make or break a project. Imagine this, a client orders a data center setup, and the initial estimate misses a few key switches and underestimates cable lengths. When the installation begins, teams scramble, costs rise, and timelines slip. Frustration builds on both sides, all because the estimate didn’t reflect the reality on the ground.

At LantroTech, we prevent this scenario from ever happening. Our estimation process is designed as the first layer of trust: aligning expectations, highlighting risks, and clarifying assumptions before a single resource is deployed. By combining structured workflows, detailed take-offs, and collaborative tools, we turn the invisible step into a visible foundation, ensuring every project starts on the right foot.

The Estimation Journey: From Drawings to Proposals

Every estimation begins with your project’s drawings, specifications, and RFPs. These documents aren’t just paperwork, they’re the blueprint for performance, timelines, and investment. At LantroTech, we turn these blueprints into clarity, ensuring every step of your project is built on a solid foundation.

Laying the Foundation

Our estimation process begins with a thorough review of floor plans, BOQs, and device layout drawings. We categorize the project scope into low-level items like cables and patch panels, and high-level items like switches, UPS units, and firewalls. All assumptions, exclusions, and dependencies are clarified upfront to prevent ambiguity and align expectations from day one.

Detailed Take-offs and Spec Sheets

Next, we perform detailed take-offs, extracting quantities directly from drawings and cross-referencing them with RFPs. Each line item is captured in a Spec Sheet, which documents product specifications, types, and brand preferences. This ensures that nothing is left to guesswork and every component is accounted for.

Generating the Bill of Materials (BOM)

The Bill of Materials (BOM) forms the foundation of the project’s pricing. It includes item names, specifications, estimated quantities, brand preferences, and delivery assumptions. Once finalized, the BOM is shared with qualified vendors for pricing. Their responses are compared for competitiveness, compatibility, and consistency, ensuring clients receive the best technical and commercial offer. Finally, all technical documents, pricing sheets, and summary reports are compiled into a formal project bid. But for us, submitting a bid is just the beginning, it’s the first step toward seamless collaboration and project success.

Designed for Collaboration, Not Just Submission

At LantroTech, estimation is built to be transparent and collaborative, not just a formality. Each project is supported by a dedicated system that provides real-time visibility into progress, milestones, and documentation, keeping both internal teams and clients aligned throughout the estimation process. All communication,  from clarifications to approvals, is centralized and fully traceable, ensuring that nothing gets lost and everyone stays on the same page. This structured approach helps prevent misalignment, reduces delays and fosters confidence in every step of the project. We take data security seriously. All estimation information is stored securely and organized under unique project identifiers, allowing for full traceability, controlled access, and organized management across teams. Clients can be confident that sensitive information is handled safely, while the project remains fully transparent and well-documented.

SAGE + END: Streamlining the Flow

After take-offs and spec sheets are complete, the estimation process moves into SAGE, where quantities, pricing, and assemblies form a detailed Scope of Work. Once finalized, the data flows into our internal END system, which generates complete bids with consistent formatting, clean documentation, and full traceability. This seamless handoff minimizes manual work, reduces errors, and brings speed and structure to even the most complex estimates.

Layered Reviews: Accuracy You Can Count On

Every estimate undergoes three levels of review before reaching the client. First, the assigned estimator double-checks quantities, pricing, and vendor quotes. Next, a second estimator or team lead performs a quality check on assumptions, quantity logic, and formatting. Finally, the estimate is shared with the client for feedback and adjustments, long before the final submission. This layered approach reduces late-stage changes and ensures projects start on the right foot.

Post-Win Support: From Estimate to Execution

Our involvement continues even after the estimate is submitted. Once a project is awarded, we compile all documentation into a complete Job Package and conduct a kick-off call between the estimation team and the assigned Project Manager. Materials are selected and submittals sent for client approval, after which field execution begins with full alignment across teams.

Any changes in scope or client requirements are handled as formal Change Orders. Each CO is documented, reviewed, and processed using the same tools to ensure consistency, visibility, and client approval.

The Result? Seamless Collaboration, Better Project

At LantroTech, we don’t just deliver estimates, we deliver clarity, confidence, and alignment from day one. Clients know exactly what’s included, how it was built, and why it makes sense before a single resource is deployed. With collaborative tools, structured reviews, and secure data practices, our clients are always informed, involved, and never in the dark.

Our goal isn’t just to submit bids, it’s to become a trusted extension of your team. Whether reviewing technical specs, managing change orders, or aligning timelines, we support you every step of the way. Because at LantroTech, a great estimate isn’t just about accuracy, it’s about setting your project up for success before it even begins.