Trading pen and paper for real-time portfolio visibility

The Challenge

As Greek Design | Build (Greek) scaled its fully integrated model — taking on larger developments, expanding into new markets and growing its third-party construction business —its manual, paper-based processes became a bottleneck. Project data was difficult to access, financials were fragmented across spreadsheets and leadership lacked real-time visibility into a growing portfolio of assets and stakeholders.

The Solution

Greek implemented Procore Project Management and Financials to centralize project data and bring real-time visibility to its operations. By connecting field and office teams, standardizing workflows and providing live access to financials and project history, Procore gave leadership and ownership stakeholders the insight needed to manage projects — and the broader portfolio — with greater visibility and control.

The Results

• Gained real-time budget visibility, facilitating informed decisions across full portfolio
• Improved portfolio oversight by giving leadership direct access to project data
• Facilitated issue resolution, providing the data needed for timely budget decisions
• Standardized processes across markets, supporting consistent reporting and scalability
• Streamlined workflows by using AI tools to generate answers and connect project data

A traditional approach to ownership reaches its limits

As a developer, builder and owner of large-scale industrial facilities, Greek Design | Build has always taken pride in doing things itself. And for much of its 90-year history, a surprising number of those things were done by hand.

“It was very old school — a real pen-and-paper approach to everything,” said Matthew Zangara, Business Development Manager. “Our in-house engineer has been with us for 50 years, and the two guys running project management have been here over a decade. Everything went through them, and a lot of it was manual.”

The process worked well — until the business hit an inflection point. After purchasing nearly 7 million square feet of property to build two of the biggest industrial parks on the East Coast, Greek began to feel the pain of human bottlenecks, as more projects, more stakeholders and more capital started flowing through the same handful of people.

The company was also expanding its construction arm, taking on more third-party work for clients who expected the same level of visibility and control. “The idea is to take the same quality and mindset we’ve always had as a fully integrated company and apply it to outside work as well,” said Zangara.

Greek’s existing process simply wasn’t built for that level of complexity. The team needed a system that could keep up not only with individual jobs, but with a growing portfolio of assets and stakeholders.

Bringing structure to a growing portfolio

Once Procore emerged as the clear choice, the company’s use of the platform expanded rapidly. “It started with daily reports,” said Zangara. “We wanted a way to archive them for safety, for records and to be able to go back and see exactly what happened on a given day. Then it expanded into Financials, being able to track projects in real time without pulling everything out of Excel.”

Procore made it possible for teams in the field and office to work from the same information. “We liked that it was cloud-based and accessible for the field,” said Brett Mercer, Managing Partner. “Superintendents could use iPads and be fully integrated with the project managers.”

The platform also made it possible for leadership to have greater access to project and portfolio health than ever before. “At the executive level, we could subscribe to daily reports and photos instead of requesting them, which gave us much higher visibility,” said Mercer.

“They can go in on the ownership side and see the drawings, who’s involved, how the meetings are going and what’s happening on the job without having to track someone down,” said Zangara.

Managing the portfolio quickly went from guesswork to data-driven intelligence. “Because we own many of these buildings at the end of the day, Procore makes it an easy transition for us,” said Mercer. "We have the entire history of the project in one spot, so we can flip it right over to property management during closeout. It gives us a level of visibility that just wasn't possible with pen and paper.”

Connecting construction to ownership

The impact is just as clear on the financial side. “From the executive level, being able to go into a real-time snapshot and see where budget line items are over or under is really important,” Mercer said. “You can make decisions on staffing or costs because you know exactly where you stand.”

Procore also allowed for a new level of clarity when working with third-party owners. “Before Procore, revenue projections were just straight guesses in Excel,” Mercer said.  “Now, it’s fully open book, and that transparency with our partners on the development side is key.”

On one recent project, that access helped enable the team to respond quickly to an unexpected issue. “We had neighbors feeling vibrations from our work, and we needed to decide whether to install an isolation trench,” Mercer said. “It was a big cost, but we were able to look at the budget, see that we had the money in the line item, and make that decision within an hour.”

“Without that, we would have had to go back and review everything before moving forward,” he added.

A consistent approach that paints a more professional picture

As Greek has expanded into new markets and taken on more third-party work, Procore has made it easier to maintain consistency across projects. “A new superintendent in another state can access the system and fill out the same forms that we and our capital partners are used to seeing,” Mercer said. “Everything looks the same whether we’re building here or somewhere else.”

That consistency and insight has helped them build credibility in a competitive market. “When you’re working with outside developers or end users, giving them visibility into financials, daily reports and submittals in one place helps them operate their businesses,” Mercer said.

“It also definitely gives us a competitive advantage,” he added. “It’s a lot easier for owners when they don’t have to go to multiple platforms to understand what’s happening on a project.”

Driving greater efficiencies through AI

After years spent building out its processes in Procore, the company is now finding ways to use the platform’s emerging AI functions. “I use the AI tool instead of going into the chat room,” said Mary Kay Barberi, Senior Administrator. “If I’m trying to build a report or connect different filters, I just ask it and it walks me through it. It’s been helpful, and it’s saving us hours.”

Looking ahead, the team expects AI to play a larger role beyond just navigating the platform. “I’m already using AI to go through 700-page geotechnical and environmental reports,” said Mercer. “In 45 seconds, I can get a summary of risks and estimated costs. Our clients want things faster now, and tools like that are going to change how we work.”

Building a smarter portfolio with every job

For Greek, Procore’s impact compounds over time. Each project feeds into the next, and each building adds to a portfolio backed by a complete, accessible record of how it was delivered.

“Looking back at historical change orders helps us buy better scope,” Mercer said. “We’ve looked at where we missed things years ago to make sure we designed it correctly this time.”

That continuity — and the confidence it creates — has become foundational to how the company operates as it grows, turning a pen-and-paper operation into a scalable business that gets smarter with every project.

“I’m very thankful that we went with Procore,” Mercer said. “It really allowed us to generate efficiencies and accuracy across the board. We’re not bouncing between Excel, Word and PDFs anymore, and we know the information we’re looking at is right.”