What began as a CRM and dashboard initiative became a broader revenue transformation. By aligning business strategy, operating processes, technology architecture and governed data, Withum helped a growing general contracting company establish a more forward-looking approach to managing revenue.
A mid-sized general contracting company engaged Withum to improve its use of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and develop clearer reporting across its revenue operations. The initial concept focused primarily on CRM optimization, data consolidation and dashboards. Through stakeholder discovery and strategic validation, however, the engagement revealed a larger opportunity.
The company was preparing for significant growth over the next five years and needed more than a traditional reporting solution. It needed a structured revenue intelligence model that could connect sales pipeline, operational execution and financial performance while helping leadership make decisions about future growth.
Withum approached the project as a business transformation initiative rather than a technology implementation. Using a growth readiness framework strategy, the team evaluated the company’s business objectives, operating processes, data structure and technology environment. Withum then helped define the business architecture, improve the use of Dynamics 365 as a pipeline management platform and develop executive and business-unit dashboards in Microsoft Power BI.
The resulting solution provides forward-looking visibility into backlog, revenue, forecast, pipeline and capture across multiple planning terms. It also creates a stronger foundation for revenue strategy, digital enablement and ongoing operational improvement.
The client is an award-winning general contracting company based in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Its work spans multifamily, hospitality, life sciences, technology and government projects.
As the company planned for substantial growth over the next five years, leadership recognized that its existing systems and processes were not structured to support the scale of the organization it intended to become. The company needed to modernize how it managed its sales pipeline, connected revenue information to operations and give leaders visibility into future performance.
The company was using Microsoft Dynamics 365 primarily as a database rather than as a comprehensive pipeline and revenue management platform. Custom fields and dropdown menus captured information, but the system did not consistently support forward-looking pipeline management, forecasting or strategic decision-making.
Information was also distributed across Dynamics 365, Procore and other applications. This created several connected challenges:
The original assessment similarly identified forecasting blind spots, decisions still needed around system integration, undefined data governance and continued reliance on spreadsheets. These conditions affected forecasting, operational efficiency and the consistency of the client experience.
What began as a potential CRM and reporting project therefore evolved into a broader question: How could the company build a scalable revenue architecture that would support significant growth and tangibly improve how it operated the revenue side of the business?
Withum organized the engagement around business outcomes first, then used technology to support those outcomes. The work extended from strategic validation and business architecture through solution design, implementation, launch and improvement.
Withum began by working with stakeholders to understand the company’s growth objectives, current operating model and desired future state. The team used Withum’s Growth Readiness Framework to evaluate the business across high-quality data, strategic differentiation, operational excellence, customer-centric innovation, agility and data-driven decision-making.
This upstream validation helped the project team look beyond immediate technical requirements. Customer-centric innovation emerged as a leading priority, supported by the need for stronger operational processes and more reliable data.
The assessment established a path from discovery and diagnosis through alignment, prioritization, recommendations and activation. This helped connect the company’s long-term business goals to near-term execution decisions.
Rather than treating Dynamics 365 as a standalone database, Withum helped the company reconsider how the platform could support pipeline management, account strategy and future revenue visibility.
The work included evaluating existing data and workflows, defining the information required for effective pipeline management and restructuring elements of Dynamics 365 so the organization could use it more strategically. This represented a shift from documenting sales activity to actively managing opportunities, forecasts and pursuits.
The future-state strategy positioned CRM at the center of a broader growth model that connected customer experience, revenue operations, innovation and competitive positioning.
Withum defined an architecture that maintained clear ownership of financial and pipeline information:
The solution intentionally kept financial truth separate from pipeline signals. Financial measures originated in Procore, while pipeline measures originated in Dynamics 365, avoiding inappropriate cross-source blending.
This governed approach allowed the company to connect information for decision-making while preserving consistent definitions, source ownership and trust in the underlying metrics.
During an AI-enabled design workshop, Withum met with stakeholders to understand what leaders needed to see and how they wanted to interact with the information.
The company had an internally developed dashboard example that helped communicate its vision, but the existing Dynamics 365 data was not yet structured to deliver the desired insights. The Withum team used Microsoft Copilot to rapidly develop rough dashboard concepts from the stakeholder input and existing example.
This allowed participants to react to potential layouts, metrics and visualizations during the workshop itself. Instead of waiting for a lengthy design cycle, the team could iterate on ideas in real time and quickly develop a shared view of the desired experience.
Those concepts were then provided to Withum’s data visualization specialist, who developed the dashboards in Power BI using governed information from Dynamics 365 and Procore.
The executive dashboard was designed as a revenue intelligence model rather than a conventional reporting system. While a reporting system primarily explains what has already happened, an intelligence system helps leadership look ahead, evaluate potential outcomes and respond earlier.
The model provides a governed view of financial performance, pipeline execution and long-term revenue trajectory. It includes:
The executive experience provides a 36-month forward and backward view of financial performance, while maintaining a clear distinction between financial measures and pipeline signals.
For example, rolling backlog allows leaders to compare planned revenue over the next 36 months with the previous 36 months, helping them assess whether backlog is increasing, remaining stable or declining.
The dashboard also distinguishes active pipeline from financial commitments. Pipeline represents opportunity visibility, not confirmed financial performance, while backlog reflects future contracted work.
In addition to the executive dashboard, Withum developed an operating view for business-unit leaders. This view connects financial performance, pipeline health, client experience and account prioritization across an 18-month horizon.
The combination of 6-, 18- and 36-month perspectives allows different audiences to work from the level of detail appropriate to their responsibilities. Operational teams can focus on near-term performance and execution, while executives can evaluate longer-term revenue direction, growth indicators and potential risks.
The executive dashboard uses a simplified filter structure focused on sector and date. By limiting unnecessary controls, the solution prioritizes clarity and consistent interpretation over excessive configurability.
The engagement addressed more than platforms and dashboards. Withum also helped the company consider the operating processes, skills, governance and behaviors required to use the new capabilities effectively.
This included:
The original transformation roadmap called for stakeholder discovery, data-health diagnostics, integration planning, visual prototyping, Dynamics 365 enhancements, Procore integration, dashboards, training and ongoing optimization.
The engagement helped the company move from a limited CRM and reporting concept to a broader revenue intelligence foundation aligned with its growth strategy.
Leadership now has a structured model for examining future commitments, current performance, pipeline activity, forecast and growth direction. The solution brings these elements together in one executive experience while maintaining clear boundaries between financial and pipeline information.
Dynamics 365 can now support a more mature approach to pipeline management and revenue strategy. Rather than serving primarily as a repository for records, the platform contributes opportunity, forecast and capture information to a broader revenue intelligence model.
Defined KPI logic, source ownership, time horizons and filter behavior give leaders a more consistent framework for interpreting performance. Procore remains responsible for financial measures, while Dynamics 365 supplies pipeline and execution signals.
The AI-supported design workshop enabled stakeholders to see and refine dashboard concepts during the session. Rapid prototyping with Copilot helped translate business requirements into visual concepts that the Power BI team could develop further.
The company now has a stronger business and technology architecture for connecting revenue strategy, pipeline management, operations and financial performance. This foundation can support continued digital enablement, workforce adoption and ongoing improvement as the organization pursues its growth objectives.
By leading with business architecture and measurable outcomes rather than technology alone, Withum expanded its role from implementation provider to trusted advisor. The engagement developed a collaborative relationship centered on the client’s long-term growth and operating strategy.
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