At a glance
| Industry | Commercial Construction |
|---|---|
| Heritage | 60+ years in operation |
| Products | Salesforce CRM OpenAI / ChatGPT |
| Approach | Business-issue-led digital transformation |
| AI Status | Enterprise-wide AI mandate active |
Executive summary
McGough Construction had made a previous Salesforce investment that underperformed — not because the platform was wrong, but because the implementation hadn’t been built around how the business actually worked. Re-investment required a fundamentally different approach: business-issue-led, usability-first, and culturally aligned to a people-first organization.
SMBHD re-engaged as a true strategic partner — diagnosing operational problems before prescribing solutions, prioritizing usability to reverse the prior adoption failure, and framing AI as a company-wide opportunity. Salesforce adoption is now growing, AI is active org-wide including field teams, and leadership has data visibility it didn’t have before.
Key outcomes
The business problem
McGough Construction has operated for over 60 years on the strength of its relationships, its people, and its reputation. What the business recognized was that competitive pressure, margin intensity, and the rapid emergence of AI meant that relationship-driven excellence alone was no longer a sufficient edge.
A previous Salesforce investment had stalled — not because the platform was wrong, but because the implementation hadn’t been built around how the business actually worked. Re-investment required a partner willing to ask ‘why’ before prescribing solutions, and willing to build around the culture rather than against it.
The challenge
- Fragmented systems and processes: disconnected workflows across projects, regions, and teams with no shared standard
- Limited pipeline and performance visibility: leadership couldn’t reliably assess where the business stood without significant manual aggregation
- Prior Salesforce adoption failure: a previous implementation hadn’t taken hold, creating organizational skepticism
- People-first culture: any technology approach that felt like surveillance or replacement would face resistance — the tool had to empower, not impose
- AI without a framework: the rapid emergence of AI tools created opportunity and confusion simultaneously; the organization needed a structured adoption approach
The solution
SMBHD re-centered McGough’s technology strategy around Salesforce as the core platform and paired it with a broader digital transformation initiative focused on data, AI, and process standardization.
- Salesforce re-implementation with usability at the center: improved data input simplicity and user experience to drive the adoption the previous implementation hadn’t achieved
- Process standardization via Project Launch Workbook: connecting previously siloed workflows across deal-winning and project execution into a single, consistent process
- Data-driven decision framework: business needs identified first, technology aligned to those priorities based on highest-impact problems
- Enterprise AI rollout: ChatGPT deployed internally for knowledge aggregation and faster decision-making, with AI supporting human judgment rather than replacing it
The results
Salesforce adoption — which had previously stalled — is now growing, driven by a system people actually find useful rather than one they’re required to use. AI is no longer a leadership initiative; it’s an organization-wide conversation, with field teams actively identifying use cases.
Leadership now has data visibility that represents a meaningful shift from intuition-led to evidence-informed decision-making. The cultural shift — the hardest thing to move in any 60-year-old organization — may be the most durable outcome of the engagement.
“We need partners who understand construction workflows, ask why before prescribing solutions, and align technology to business outcomes.”
AI readiness
- AI journey already underway: the enterprise ChatGPT deployment is a live proof of concept for how AI accelerates knowledge work across a large construction organization
- Agentforce for project communications: automated project status updates, RFI routing, and subcontractor follow-up are natural next use cases on the Salesforce foundation being rebuilt
- AI-driven safety monitoring: field teams participating in innovation conversations are already identifying safety documentation and incident reporting as high-value AI targets
- Predictive business intelligence: clean pipeline and project data enables AI-driven forecasting and margin analysis across regions
How we worked
- Business problems before technology: SMBHD’s re-engagement started with a diagnostic question: what are the loudest operational problems, and which ones would technology actually solve? Configuration came after that answer was clear.
- Usability as the adoption strategy: the previous implementation had failed partly on user experience. SMBHD prioritized simplicity and intuitive design, reducing the friction between how people worked and how the system wanted them to work.
- True partnership over vendor relationship: McGough explicitly needed a partner who asked ‘why’ before prescribing solutions. SMBHD’s embedded, outcome-focused approach was the reason re-engagement was possible.
- Innovation as a cultural initiative: SMBHD helped frame AI adoption as an organization-wide opportunity, including field teams, aiming for participation rather than compliance.
