Improving construction project management for rapid growth

The Challenge

NRP’s reputation in the industry as a tech-savvy construction group is well-earned, so they initially opted to build out their own construction management platform, and it served them well for several years. Ultimately, they decided they had achieved a size and scope that would benefit by adoption of a robust third-party construction technology platform. Going forward, NRP would devote their legacy system—and considerable internal software development resources—to customization and specialized adaptations that could connect their many other internal systems and capabilities.

The Solution

NRP enlisted Procore’s scalable, single-source construction management platform. Gathering all the evolving project’s information in one transparent, collaborative space, Procore organizes the data in a single intuitive virtual space accessible to all project teams. 

The Results

• Procore’s platform scales seamlessly, supporting growth from local builders to megaproject multinationals
• A single password grants access to a permission-gated space, rich with organized project details
• Procore’s cloud-based platform is secure, redundant, and eliminates the hassle of maintaining on-premise servers

NRP: Award-Winning and Tech-Savvy

The NRP Group is an award-winning innovator in the multifamily segment. Last year, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) honored NRP with the Multifamily Builder of the Year Award. This honor was driven by the long-term sustained growth of NRP Construction, and its multi-faceted approach to success—an innovative culture built to motivate and develop individuals and teams; an award-winning safety program; an industry-leading technology platform featuring best-in-class industry tools woven together by an internally developed software called NRP Connect; a reputation for high-quality, on-time, on-budget product delivery; the tremendous support of The NRP Group and associated business units; and a deep and highly experienced team of A+ industry players.

NRP is also known in the industry for what might be called technological impatience–a company eager to leverage emerging technologies to achieve improved outcomes. Like most construction outfits, NRP started out as a paper-based organization. Anne Peacock, NRP’s Director of Business Operations, vividly recalls paper–lots of it. "The amount of paper we were using to manage projects—even seven years ago when I came to this company—was unbelievable. We were sending reams and reams of reports each week to our construction managers around the country." Vice President of Business Operations Ken Weinberg recalls NRP’s early grasp of digital. "As we grew and began to scale our business, we knew we needed to move from paper-based processes to a digital platform—so we decided to build a platform ourselves. We’re a developer, builder, and property manager—all in one organization–and we wanted consistency and control."

Scaling is one thing. Scaling quickly is another.

NRP had built themselves a construction management platform. As the forward-leaning construction firm began to make serious waves in the multifamily space, their IT team worked continuously to keep their internally developed platform current. But as one business success was quickly followed by another, NRP soon reached a tipping point in its growth and began to outpace their platform’s ability to keep up. "The speed at which we were able to progress our system couldn’t match the speed at which we were growing as a company," Weinberg says. "We had a vision, and we had been building toward that vision. We just couldn’t keep pace with how quickly our business was evolving. So we made the strategic decision to shift to the Procore platform." 

"Another important advantage that Procore offered us," Peacock notes, "was the flexibility to take sections of the data the Procore system produced, and transfer it seamlessly into customized tools we created in-house to address our unique requirements. We weren’t hampered by restrictions on what we could or couldn’t do with the data."

NRP recognized that security was paramount to the success of their construction software and the business itself. "It gave us a lot of confidence," Weinberg adds, "that Procore is networked in the cloud with single sign-on and built-in redundancy, so that we're not solely dependent on our servers to save all the data."

Follow the money to make big changes.

Managing projects in the field wasn’t the only reason The NRP Group chose Procore. The team saw in Procore the means to get specific commitment and change order information in real time and help vendors get paid quickly. The executive level had its own reasons to embrace the Procore platform. "Regional vice presidents now get a daily dashboard report that calls out the hot buttons," Peacock says. "The dashboard presents a clear and clickable snapshot of status across live projects, so these busy execs don't have to go drilling into different projects looking for answers." Procore’s deep real-time visibility when combined with invoicing and accounts payable automation provides meaningful time savings. "Procore helped our Accounts Payable department save many, many hours of input," Peacock says.

Procore. Single source at scale.

NRP needed a digital construction management platform whose fluid scalability and single source of project truth could accommodate the company’s explosive growth—and increasing need for process coherence. They settled on Procore. "We needed a one-stop shop," Weinberg says simply. "That meant a single location to log into for access to all our documents. We were struggling with collaboration—with our consultants, with our vendors, with our own employees in different regions—and needed one platform to bring everyone together." 

Invoice handling was one of the many wrinkles that Procore helped iron out. "We had process improvement opportunities with invoicing as well," Peacock says. "Now our subcontractors go online, fill in one column of percent complete and submit it to us. What Procore does for us is simplify just about every aspect of our operation; RFIs, submittals, commitments, drawings, daily reports. Everything goes to one place, and it’s visible to everybody."