Building Trust Before Buildings: How Laing O’Rourke Reinvented Client Engagement with Data

Laing O’Rourke, a multinational engineering and construction firm known for innovation and client-focused delivery across many sectors which include healthcare, energy, and data centres, is committed to building infrastructure that is smarter, safer, and more sustainable. At the core of the company is the ambition to be a force of positive change in the construction industry and to push the boundaries of possibility. This is underpinned by the values of care, integrity and courage.

In recent years, Laing O’Rourke has channelled its intent into constructing within six focus sectors and strengthened its project delivery capabilities, pioneering modern methods of construction, adopting purposeful technologies, delivering greater certainty for clients, and contributing to some of the most high-profile infrastructure projects worldwide.

The Challenge: Fragmented Data and Siloed Relationships

Before transitioning to Salesforce Lightning, Laing O’Rourke’s client data environment was highly fragmented and heavily dependent upon manual processes and relationship data between their construction directors, work winning teams, and client organisations, resulting in data that remained siloed within individual teams. Information was dispersed across personal assistants and individual director diaries, paper-based records, and spreadsheets, making it difficult to establish a single source of truth. 

When a CRM was first introduced in 2009, much of the contact data remained offline and was not captured through Outlook by default. This meant they had to ask an individual who in the client base would be most appropriate to answer a question or help with something, rather than being able to simply look it up.

The Solution: A Data-Driven Approach to Relationship Intelligence

To solve its data and relationship management challenges, Laing O’Rourke partnered with Credera (formerly BrightGen), Salesforce, and Introhive. Salesforce Lightning became the foundation for a centralised CRM, while Introhive’s passive data capture and relationship intelligence tools gave the team real-time visibility into client connections — a game changer for staff working from sites or mobile devices.

“At their point of need, it will tell them the truth,” Natalie Petty, Group Client Relationship Manager.

• Personalised Engagement and Relationship Insights
  Introhive enables teams to see who knows whom across the organisation, helping them reference shared history and personalise conversations. Insights appear directly in Outlook, so users don’t have to search manually — whether they’re prepping for a meeting or following up with a client.
• Targeted Stakeholder Outreach
  Today, Introhive provides Laing O’Rourke with up-to-date relationship and contact data, making it easier for teams to answer common leadership questions like: Who are our top 10 clients for this announcement? or, “Who should we invite to this dinner?”
• Smarter Strategic Bids
  With Introhive’s relationship mapping, bid leaders can quickly see who in the business has existing ties with a prospective client, how long those connections have existed, and how frequently they’ve engaged. This visibility helps shape more strategic, informed bids and carries through into delivery, ensuring consistent engagement across the full project lifecycle.
  
  

What’s Next: Embedding Relationship Intelligence in Project Delivery

Laing O’Rourke is now looking to extend the value of Introhive beyond business development and into project delivery. By mapping individual client contacts to specific projects, the team aims to gain clearer visibility into who was engaged at each stage — and why those relationships mattered.

This capability will help answer key questions:

• Which client stakeholders were involved in each project? 
• Are we building relationships with the right people at each organisation? 
• Are we engaging consistently across different projects with the same client organisation?
  
  

Rather than assuming success on one project reflects overall client satisfaction, Laing O’Rourke can use relationship intelligence to understand and replicate what works — improving both delivery and long-term engagement.

As Laing O’Rourke continues to evolve, there’s a growing focus on sustaining the practices that are working well. As a result, the organisation is investing in consistency to ensure that teams, both established and new, share a unified approach to client engagement. The goal is to create a culture of consistency and shared understanding, one that ensures clients experience Laing O’Rourke as a unified, informed, and human-centric partner.