Lagan Aviation & Infrastructure delivers projects across civil engineering, aviation infrastructure, construction, and defense throughout the UK and EMEA. Previously, each business unit managed separate Excel spreadsheets, limiting portfolio visibility. In just 83 days, INSIDEA migrated 232+ opportunities into HubSpot, rebuilt a five-year forecasting model, and deployed a custom Breeze AI assistant that reduced board-report preparation from hours to seconds.
The challenge
Lagan manages a high-value project portfolio across four specialist business units. Before this engagement, every unit ran its own disconnected Excel spreadsheets. Leadership had no real-time view of the portfolio, no standardized stage structures, and no structured link between clients, contacts, and projects.
The cost was measurable: 3 to 5 hours per board cycle assembling reports manually, no cross-unit performance view, and no foundation for multi-year planning.
The challenge was not simply technical. Lagan wanted one purpose-built, multi-hub CRM that matched how they already worked, not a system they would need to adapt to.
The solution
INSIDEA's strategy was depth over breadth: one hub, configured precisely to Lagan's operational reality. Three principles drove the build.
1. Object renaming for operational language
Companies became Clients. Deals became Project Opportunities. The platform read like their world from the first login.
2. Excel forecasting logic rebuilt natively
Lagan's trusted multi-year quarterly model was replicated inside HubSpot using 20 custom quarterly properties spanning Q1 to Q4 across five financial years (Y-25/26 through Y-29/30). Calculated properties automatically roll quarterly values into annual totals and overall project totals in real time, without any parallel spreadsheets.
3. A custom Breeze AI assistant for executive reporting
INSIDEA configured a Lagan Executive Pipeline AI Assistant using HubSpot Breeze, structured specifically around the four business units. Leadership now generates board-level summaries from live CRM data in under 30 seconds using natural-language prompts: total pipeline value, secured versus future work, regional performance, multi-year forecast outlooks, stalled opportunities, and delivery risk.
The full build included four dedicated pipelines (each with its own stage structure and regional segmentation), five executive dashboards, a client-to-project association architecture for portfolio-level visibility, and a pipeline upgrade coordinated with HubSpot support to enable the multi-pipeline architecture on Sales Hub Professional.
The results
In 83 days, 232+ project opportunities moved from four disconnected spreadsheets into a single live HubSpot environment. For a project-led business, the pipeline is the business.
Four dedicated pipelines mean operational reality and commercial oversight now live in the same place for the first time. Always-current dashboards replaced manual assembly: directors are no longer reviewing history, they are reviewing the present.
The Breeze Executive Pipeline AI Assistant, delivered as part of the standard rollout, reduced board reporting preparation from 3 to 5 hours to a 30-second natural-language query against live data.
The adoption outcome is the clearest validation. Directors who began as Excel-only users adopted HubSpot immediately, with no parallel spreadsheet use observed after launch.
Before and after, side by side
| Dimension | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Project opportunities tracked | Fragmented across 4 spreadsheets | 232+ live in HubSpot |
| Operational pipelines | 0 unified | 4 dedicated business-unit pipelines |
| Executive dashboards | Manually assembled before every board meeting | 5 live dashboards, always current |
| Forecasting model | Disconnected Excel workbooks | Native HubSpot across 5 financial years with automated rollups |
| Board reporting prep time | 3 to 5 hours per cycle | Under 30 seconds via Breeze AI assistant |
| Client-to-project visibility | None structured | Association architecture across the full portfolio |
The impact
INSIDEA understood that we were not looking for a traditional sales CRM. The implementation focused on operational forecasting, project visibility, and long-term infrastructure planning while keeping the platform simple and practical for leadership teams to use.
James Crawford, Lagan Aviation & Infrastructure
Short-term impact: the first 90 days
From day one, HubSpot replaced spreadsheets as the primary forecasting tool across all four business units. The Breeze assistant immediately handled executive queries that had previously required hours of manual work. Two verified five-star reviews followed in May 2026: one on the HubSpot Solutions Directory and one on G2.
Long-term impact: a foundation built to scale
Lagan now has a CRM foundation that grows with them. The four-pipeline architecture supports new business-unit expansion without rearchitecture, and directors who once opened Excel to run a board meeting now open HubSpot.
The next wave is already scoped: AI-generated board summaries, stage-triggered task automation, predictive workload forecasting, mobile rollout with SSO integration, and scheduled executive reporting digests.
How AI contributed to the outcome
AI was embedded in both the delivery and the outcome. HubSpot Breeze powers the Executive Pipeline Assistant, turning 3 to 5 hours of manual board preparation into a 30-second query against live data. Breeze Record Summaries gave directors instant project-level intelligence from day one.
On the delivery side, Claude and ChatGPT accelerated schema design, pipeline configuration, and dashboard build, recovering approximately 5 hours with no rework.
Verified client reviews from this engagement
HubSpot Solutions Directory | 5 Stars | May 8, 2026
G2 | 5 of 5 | May 2026 | Verified User in Construction (Mid-Market)
How INSIDEA works
