MICROSOFT CASE STUDY: ICG cuts proposal response time by 80% with Microsoft 365 Copilot

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Executive Summary

As a startup consulting firm, ICG needed to hit the ground running with administrative infrastructure that allowed it to generate revenue quickly.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot already at hand, the team engaged it as a new colleague. Copilot started as a strong support staff member and has evolved into a dynamic, creative coworker for the team.

Using the tool’s capabilities, the team creates proposals in a fraction of the time, develops marketing materials with ease, has visibility into the profitability of their offerings, and now looks to Copilot to assist with predictive analytics.

$500K saved in avoided costs	20% increase in gross margins

When Industrialized Construction Group (ICG) spun off from a larger engineering firm, it had to quickly find its footing. A startup in the construction industry, ICG needed to establish a revenue stream while ramping up a slate of innovative solutions for clients.

ICG helps construction companies accelerate their transition to faster, safer, more efficient processes. This means moving from a construction mindset to a manufacturing mindset. Currently, most commercial construction happens on site. Trade workers, such as electricians, plumbers, and drywall installers, show up to a site and do their work in isolation. In contrast, ICG consults with companies to build offsite industrialized construction lines. For example, patient bathrooms for a hospital would be built more efficiently and safely offsite with a smaller footprint in a manufacturing facility, then delivered and installed on-site.

From juggling to streamlining

The ICG team of five found themselves stretched thin, juggling administrative tasks, client engagement, and strategic planning. “Establishing our critical infrastructure, things like templates and proposal writing, and our marketing materials—it had to come from somewhere,” says Nick Masci, Principal and Cofounder of ICG. “We’re lean thinkers and systems thinkers. Our whole mission is to help our customers work more efficiently and with better results,” he continues. “We realized Microsoft 365 Copilot was right there, so we started experimenting.”

The team uses Copilot to supplement functions such as Marketing, Sales, HR and Accounting. “Copilot helped me streamline historical proposals into a new proposal with a template, so we don’t have to rewrite those for every customer,” says Sally Mizell, Principal and Cofounder of ICG. “Using a prebuilt agent in Copilot Studio for new hires, I was able to quickly onboard a new employee with the correct forms and payroll enrollment,” Mizell continues. To get a clear picture of profitability, the team also connected Microsoft 365 Copilot to financial data to produce visualizations. 

“Copilot is streamlining so many processes for us.” Nick agrees, adding “We thought we needed more people. But what we really needed was a smarter way to work."

“Copilot has allowed us to punch above our weight. It’s not just a tool; it’s a partner in our mission to transform construction.”

Nick Masci, Principal & Cofounder, ICG

Articulating a clear vision

“Copilot became a dynamic collaborator. It helped us polish language, define value propositions, and clarify communications,” Masci says. Melissa McEwen, Principal and Cofounder at ICG, notes, “As Copilot has helped us articulate our business value proposition more clearly, we’ve created alignment and clarity across the company. That’s no small thing.”

Paving the way to profitability

With solid business infrastructure in place, the team turned to Copilot to chart their next steps. “As Microsoft 365 tools and capabilities have evolved, we’ve grown right along with it. Building agents in Copilot Studio will help us expand our offering to customers, which directly contributes to our profitability,” notes Masci.

ICG conducts an Industrialized Construction Maturity Assessment (ICMA) for customers, which evaluates a company across six disciplines, 70 topics, and five levels of performance. “I’m working with Copilot to analyze correlations between different areas of construction maturity so when we report to our clients, we can show them what levers to pull to impact their business,” says Coleton Callender, Senior Product Manager at ICG. “We’ve never been able to do this before because there’s too much complexity in the assessment. A Copilot agent gives us this new capability.”

Before ICG realized Copilot could help streamline the ICMA reporting and data gathering, it anticipated needing to hire a programmer to help build a custom solution. “We’ve saved ourselves probably $500,000 in programming services that we don’t need because we can use Copilot instead,” observes Mizell.

“We’ve saved ourselves probably $500,000 in programming services that we don’t need because we can use Copilot instead.”

Sally Mizell, Principal & Cofounder, ICG

Redefining construction

ICG is poised to help redefine the construction industry. By tying predictive analytics into its ICMA tool, it aims to provide clients with actionable insights that drive efficiency, reduce costs, and improve quality. Already, Copilot has helped ICG reduce proposal response time by 80%, so the team can focus on customers instead of paperwork. Copilot has also contributed to a 20% increase in gross margins by helping the team implement value pricing and simplify billing.

As Masci puts it, “Copilot has allowed us to punch above our weight. It’s not just a tool; it’s a partner in our mission to transform construction.”

Melissa McEwen, Principal and Cofounder at ICG, shares her perspective on transforming from within

I really do love the construction industry. I love the built environment. I'm kind of a geek about buildings and infrastructure and design. What really drives me is the people that build these things for us. They impact our communities. They create the things around us that enable us in life. I'm driven to use my technical skills to help people in construction apply what they know so we can all adapt to this moment.

We’re process thinkers, so we want to find the most efficient, smart way to get our work done. Copilot is an invaluable tool, streamlining processes and enhancing our capabilities in ways we never imagined. It helps us show up consistently across customer touchpoints with templates, and we create proposals in a fraction of the time we used to. Marketing materials, onboarding new employees, and a long list of administrative tasks—all handled by Copilot now.

It is surprising how Copilot has helped with continued refinement of our vision, strategy, and value proposition. This has helped build a singular clear purpose. People apply this clarity to their work every day with each other and our customers.

I am incredibly proud of our team at ICG. Their dedication, creativity, and willingness to embrace new technologies have been instrumental in our success. These technologies are helping us empower the people in this industry that I love to do their absolute best to build a sustainable, more efficient approach to construction.