Keeping rapid growth from becoming operational chaos

The Challenge

Carroll Daniel skyrocketed from a $200 million regional builder into a nearly $1  billion diversified business through a combination of organic expansion and strategic  investments in innovation. As the company grew, new businesses were also acquired,  which added new project teams who were using a variety of diƯerent tools, diƯerent  processes and diƯerent ways of tracking work, making it hard to compare projects,  maintain consistency and get a clear picture of performance across the business.

The Solution

Carroll Daniel adopted Procore to unify its project management processes into one  system. With standardized workflows for everything from daily reports to quality  inspections and financial tracking, the company established consistent processes,  improved accountability and gave leadership the visibility needed to identify risks,  track performance and support continued growth.

The Results

• Created a standardized operating model that generated consistent data across eight construction divisions
• Gave leadership real-time visibility into performance across more than 100 active jobsites
• Strengthening accountability by consolidating project, quality, safety and financial data into one system
• Enabled a more proactive approach to quality, risk management and operational decision-making
• Reduced financial the risk of overpayments by connecting field data with financial tracking

Growth Without Compromise  

Carroll Daniel grew from a $200 million regional builder into a nearly $1 billion diversified  business by investing in more efficient ways to serve their clients, including the ability to  self-perform key capabilities and serve a broader geography, while staying on top of the  latest market insights to mitigate risks - and then building the capabilities needed to get  there.  

Supply chain volatility has been a significant factor in shaping the company’s strategic  decisions, particularly within its steel fabrication operations. In response to evolving  market conditions, the company has focused on strengthening its ability to serve  customers with greater reliability, efficiency, and responsiveness.  

Even when facing larger competitors, the company has remained focused on what sets it  apart: exceptional service, agile execution, and solutions designed around customer  success. Rather than competing on size alone, it has prioritized delivering value in the  areas that matter most to its clients - helping them stay on schedule, meet critical project  deadlines, and minimize disruptions. This approach has enabled the company to build  strong customer relationships and consistently provide solutions that extend beyond what  larger competitors may be able to offer.  

“Ultimately, all of these decisions come back to one principle:  

If you don’t differentiate yourself intentionally, the market will commoditize you.” says Brian Daniel, CEO of Carroll Daniel. “We’ve chosen to invest in capabilities and markets that give  us - and our clients - more control, more certainty, and better outcomes.”  

Today, Carrol Daniel builds everything from industrial manufacturing facilities and mission critical projects such as data centers and ocean terminals, as well as K-12 and Higher-Ed  facilities and more, with eight construction divisions serving across seven offices. They are  differentiated not only by their vast range of services, but by their “Beyond the Build”  philosophy. “We don’t just build it and walk away,” says Amanda Correa, VP of Marketing.  “We continue to invest in those relationships, strengthen communities, and  help establish careers for people.” 

Process Variability Hindering Growth  

With aggressive growth came a growing operational problem: different teams across the  company were managing projects in different ways.  

“If you’ve got two or three job sites, it’s not a big deal if each does things their own way,”  says Ashlyn Mattle, VP of Technology and Innovation. “But if you’re trying to track metrics  across 100+ sites, it becomes a lot harder to have different processes on every single one.”  

Project information was spread across multiple systems, spreadsheets and workflows.  Teams relied on different tools and processes for scheduling, field management, financial  tracking, and reporting, creating inconsistencies, limiting visibility, and making it difficult to  compare performance across divisions.  

The more the company grew, the more that fragmentation became a threat to its  ambitions. “As we continue to grow, having timely access to accurate information  becomes increasingly critical,” said Stone. “When everyone is working from the same  system and following the same processes, we can identify potential project issues early  and address them before they escalate.”  

Procore provides the guardrails  

To find a project management solution, leadership started by asking larger, more  established competitors what helped them scale. After performing their own tests and  analysis, Procore emerged as the obvious leader in the project management software  marketplace.  

Procore helped define the operational structure that the company had been missing of the  growing company. Instead of rebuilding workflows from scratch on every project, teams  could now operate inside a shared template for daily reports, RFIs, quality tracking, safety  inspections, and financials.  

“Procore provided the guardrails,” Mattle says. “The system makes you do things a certain  way, which helped define the SOPs we’d been needing.”  

That consistency became especially important as Carroll Daniel invested more heavily in  operational analytics and reporting. Standardized workflows meant leadership could finally  compare projects, identify trends, and surface risks across the organization using the same  data structure. “Getting everyone standardized inside Procore has made that a whole lot  easier,” Stone says. “Once people buy into it, they start to see why we’re doing things this  way and wonder how we ever operated differently.  

Turning standardized data into smarter, faster decisions  

With workflows standardized inside Procore, the company could start using project data in  a more meaningful way.  

One of the biggest impacts came through financial tracking for self-perform work. With  field teams, project managers and accounting staff all working inside the same system, the  company could now compare material deliveries, installed quantities and subcontractor  invoices without chasing information across multiple reports.  

“I know now that 100,000 blocks have been delivered to that job,” Stone says. “I know the  superintendent says there’s 80,000 of those that have been installed. Then I can go look at  the sub-invoice asking for 110,000 units installed and very quickly say, ‘Hey man, there’s no  way this can be more than 85,000.’”  

Such visibility also helped the company identify quality issues earlier. Stone recalls a  project where recurring window leaks began appearing during testing. Because  observations, inspections and quality reports were being tracked consistently inside  Procore, his team recognized the pattern before it was too late.  

“We found a flaw in how the window installer was assembling their pans at the bottom of  the windows,” Stone says. “Had those processes not been in place not been there, the  owner could be sitting in a building right now that has some form of water intrusion in 60%  of their windows.”  

Most importantly, the structure and insight provided by Procore have helped create a  culture of accountability and efficiency across the entire company. “The platform puts  accountability front and center and gets everyone pulling in the same direction.” Says  Stone.  

Finding new ways to think ‘Beyond the Build’  

With standardized processes established, Carroll Daniel leadership is increasingly focused  on using operational data to look forward instead of simply documenting the past. Quality  inspections, safety observations and field reports are now being analyzed across projects  to identify recurring issues, spot risks earlier, and guide company-wide training efforts.  

“We generate hundreds of reports across the company every week. By applying advanced  analytics to that data, we can quickly identify the top trends and recurring issues across our  projects, allowing us to focus our attention where it will have the greatest impact”, Stone  says.  

Such an approach is not just changing how the company operates; it’s providing a  competitive advantage in the marketplace, says Correa. “This model we’ve built that  blends deep experience with forward-thinking execution is one of the things that truly sets  us apart.”  

With the ability to see around corners and prepare for what’s coming, Carroll Daniel is  bringing new meaning to the idea of seeing “Beyond the Build."