Construction Startup Scales Operations with AI

Grow your business with Microsoft 365 Copilot. A monthly resource that provides actionable insights for small businesses to harness the power of AI. In this issue, we look at the perspective of a startup construction company using Copilot to transform its operations. Did you know that in the United States alone, there are nearly 500,000 small and medium-sized trade contractors, most of whom employ fewer than five people? With limited resources, it can be difficult to complete administrative, project, and operational tasks, especially for small teams. But what if AI could take the burden off your shoulders by handling routine tasks, freeing up time to take on more projects and finish them faster?

How Copilot Helps Construction Industry Scale for Growth

We interviewed Nick Masci, CEO and co-founder of the Boston-based startup. Industrial Construction Group (ICG) talked about the challenges they faced and the achievements they made after integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot into their daily workflow.

In the dynamic world of construction, ICG stands out by combining traditional methods with advanced manufacturing technologies. This innovative approach not only reduces construction schedules, but also improves safety and efficiency. ICG’s biggest challenge has been scaling for growth, which requires spending time on site, talking to clients, and coordinating complex projects. ICG found that accuracy was difficult to achieve due to extensive documentation and inefficiencies in managing large amounts of data. Ensuring effective communication and collaboration between team members, especially in a hybrid work environment, was challenging and often led to misunderstandings and project delays.

To address these challenges and transform business operations, ICG now leverages Microsoft 365 Copilot to accelerate customer proposal creation, reduce reporting time, and manage projects more effectively.

Streamlined Customer Offering

Creating client proposals was time-consuming and inefficient, often requiring extensive manual work and coordination. Manual work also impacted quality and consistency. Using Copilot for client proposals on construction projects has proven to be extremely beneficial for ICG. Copilot can help create comprehensive, professional content in apps like Word and PowerPoint, reference files, and content such as past contracts and proposals, and can pull information from the web to add context to responses and generated content. Copilot can help staff interpret data and create visuals and analytics using Copilot in Excel, allowing them to quickly gain insights and focus on ensuring that proposals are thorough and polished. Microsoft 365 Copilot has helped accelerate the proposal process (up to 6x faster) and improve quality and professionalism.

Accelerated Customer Reporting

Generating customer reports was another lengthy process. One report could take up to eight hours and involve three people. Managing and compiling data from multiple sources introduced inconsistencies and errors, affecting report quality and diverting resources from important tasks. ICG streamlines reporting. Business Chat can find and analyze multiple customer data sources from work content, chats, emails, and files, and draft reports. Microsoft 365 Copilot has helped reduce customer reporting times (by up to half), increasing ICG’s responsiveness and customer service quality.

Screenshot of Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat

Improve project management

ICG was experiencing frequent project delays due to inefficient communication and coordination across teams. Lack of real-time updates and fragmented communication channels led to misunderstandings and slowed down the decision-making process. Collaboration across departments and project sites was difficult, and teams often worked in silos, making it difficult to share information and collaborate effectively. Copilot in Teams helps teams extract insights from project huddles to quickly get to key decisions and action items. Copilot in Outlook lets teams summarize long project email threads so they can jump right into what they need to respond to.

Screenshot of Copilot showing a meeting summary and answering questions about the meeting in Teams

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, ICG has dramatically transformed its business operations with streamlined processes, increased productivity, and improved communication. “Our work needs to scale to an audience and customer base that is 1,000 times larger than what we have today,” says Masci. “We want the Microsoft suite to not only grow with us, but also anticipate our needs.”

We are excited to see ICG and other companies revolutionizing the construction industry with AI. By integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot, ICG is setting a new bar for productivity and innovation. As the industry evolves, AI will be key to competitive advantage and growth.

Watch for another case study next month on how Copilot is creating more value and opportunities. If your company has grown with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and you’d like to share your story, we’d love to feature you! Let us know your interest by commenting below and a member of our team will reach out to you!

Take action! Try some of the ways ICG uses Microsoft 365 Copilot.

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Earlier this week, Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro launched: Copilot’s second wave. Based on customer feedback, we are integrating Web + Work + Pages into a completely new business design system. Here’s an overview of the key new features announced for all SMBs:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat combines the latest information from the web with data from the Microsoft Graph to help you find the answers you need. Pilot Page Copilot provides a new canvas to store responses, simplifying sharing, editing, and collaboration.
• Pilot in Excel Now generally available. Also, Copilot in Excel using Python Introducing a code-free way to perform advanced analytics using Copilot.
• Narrative Builder Pilot in PowerPoint It helps you create your first draft and even lets you use company templates to write content that fits your brand.
• Team Pilot Now you can infer both meeting minutes and meeting chat, so you never miss a single note or action item from a meeting.
• The “Prioritize Inbox” feature is coming. Pilot of Outlook It helps you prioritize your most important emails based on the context and content of your organization, so you always have them up to date.
• Pilot Agent Here we help you align your business line tools and coordinate your business in a single place. We help you integrate third-party tools so Copilot can react based on that external data.

Check out the full details presentation and Launch Event.

Angela Byers

Microsoft

Senior Director, Copilot & Growth Marketing for SMB
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Meet the team

Our monthly series, Grow Your Business with Copilot for Microsoft 365, is brought to you by Microsoft’s SMB Copilot marketing team. From entrepreneurs to coffee connoisseurs, they work passionately behind the scenes to share the magic of Copilot products with all small businesses. Always ready with a smile, a helping hand, and a clever campaign, they’re passionate about helping you grow your business!

Pictured here is Microsoft’s SMB Copilot team, from left to right: Angela Byers, Mariana Prudencio, Elif Algedik, Kayla Patterson, Briana Taylor, and Gabe Ho.

About the blog

“Welcome to .Grow your business with Microsoft 365 Copilot“At AI, we aim to inspire and delight you with insights and stories about how AI is changing the game for business. This monthly series is designed to help small businesses harness the power of AI in the workplace. Each month, we showcase scenarios in which SMBs are using AI to innovate, scale, and grow.