In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine Ehsan Foroughi,, CTO and Co-founder of Crewscope, shares his transformative vision for the construction industry. With nearly two decades of experience in B2B SaaS and engineering leadership, Ehsan is driving innovation that bridges the gap between planning and execution on industrial job sites. Crewscope’s platform empowers hourly workers and site leaders by bringing clarity, real-time communication, and motivation to the frontline—addressing longstanding challenges in labor productivity and team engagement. From improving workforce morale to leveraging AI-driven insights for smarter decisions, Ehsan discusses how technology can revolutionize field operations while anticipating a future where AI reshapes the entire construction landscape. This conversation reveals practical strategies and inspiring foresight for construction SMEs ready to embrace digital transformation.
Ehsan Foroughi is the CTO and Co-founder of Crewscope, bringing nearly two decades of B2B SaaS expertise to transform how field teams collaborate in industrial settings. As a seasoned technology leader, Ehsan previously grew Security Compass’s software division from inception to $20M in annual recurring revenue and built an engineering team of 70+ professionals before supporting a successful $100M+ Private Equity exit. His technical acumen spans product management, engineering leadership, and innovation. Today, Ehsan leverages this experience to build Crewscope’s platform that connects field workers with purpose and helps industrial companies improve productivity through better planning and team alignment.
Building a startup means making tough personal choices. What convinced you that focusing on hourly worker engagement was worth the personal sacrifice?
When I got together with my current Co-founder CEO, Calvin Benchimol, he had already spent hundreds of hours observing job sites, interviewing workers, site leaders, and owners/executives. I started reading all of those notes and started seeing the raw sentiments from the workers that strongly resonated with me. Here are a few examples of exact words that got etched on my mind:
- “I feel replaceable” / “I feel I am treated like a tool”
- “Nobody comes on site to talk to me unless they want to yell at me for something I screwed up.”
- “I have no idea if we did a good job or not when I go home at the end of the week. We are always pushed just to do more.”
- “I don’t know why we need to finish this by Thursday when there are so many issues on site that the project managers in the office have no idea about and understanding of.”
- “I get paid the same no matter what happens on the site. Why should I break my back getting things done when some of the other workers can take the easy road and get to the same place?”
I realized that workers are often looked down upon, whereas they can do a lot more if they are enabled. The best teams had leaders who connected the work with purpose, motivated the workers, and enabled them to take initiative to counteract the many reasons that the project can get off track.
The answer felt easy, and the technology, done right, could help. That was my calling.
How does Crewscope leverage technology to enhance labor productivity in construction, and what specific features do you believe are most impactful in achieving this goal?
Crewscope enhances productivity by addressing the fundamental gap between how companies plan work and how crews execute it.
Our most impactful features are deceptively simple:
Weekly goal setting: Site leaders set clear, simple, achievable targets that connect daily work to larger project outcomes. It is written down and communicated (in contrast to staying verbal and forgotten about by the end of the week!)
Progress visibility: Real-time updates keep crews informed about their performance, empowering them to take initiative.
Team-based incentives: Shared rewards when goals are met create bottom-up accountability and motivation.
At EllisDon’s early pilot, in Alberta, implementing these features delivered an 8% productivity improvement, saving $85,000 in direct labor costs while rewarding crews with $8,500 in incentives—a 10x return on investment.
One foreman told us, “Before Crewscope, the crew had the attitude of ‘whatever happens is fine.’ Now they’re talking about production goals daily and taking initiative to solve problems before they affect the schedule.”
This isn’t just about technology—it’s about transforming how construction work gets done by empowering the people who do it.
What are some of the most significant challenges you’ve encountered in improving productivity within the construction sector, and how does Crewscope address these challenges?
Over the past 2-3 years, I have kept running into the same roadblocks on construction sites:
- Good people are hard to find and even harder to keep. With so many senior skilled workers retiring, foremen tell me they spend half their day just trying to find reliable workers. When crews change, productivity takes a major hit. Successful firms are the ones that have managed to keep their workers happy and engaged. When it comes to finding good leaders, this is even harder! Most leaders are skilled workers that go promoted with very little leadership and people management training.
- Everyone is paid by the hour, but the project wins only when hours go down. That built-in conflict means “finishing early” often feels like working yourself out of a paycheck, so crews do what the system rewards: more hours, not better output.
- Plans live on whiteboards and in the superintendent’s head. Targets get discussed once in the trailer and then drift. By Wednesday, half the crew isn’t sure what “good” looks like, so they wait for the next instruction instead of taking initiative. On Friday, everybody is ready to list reasons why they didn’t meet the plan if asked, but most don’t even agree on what was said on a Monday.
This has been the driver for us in Crewscope. We try to tackle these issues by helping the site (in contrast to the back office) to have its own plans written down and communicated well, and reviewed on a daily basis by communicating the progress to the workers. What we focus on is making it so easy with technology that there is no excuse not to do that!!
As a seasoned technology executive and entrepreneur, what advice would you offer to small and medium-sized businesses in the construction sector looking to leverage technology to improve their operations?
For SMEs in construction looking to leverage technology, I offer a few practical pieces of advice:
- Start with a clear business problem, not technology: Identify your biggest operational pain point that directly impacts your bottom line. Technology should solve real problems, not create new ones.
- Prioritize adoption over features: The best technology is worthless if your team won’t use it. Choose solutions designed for your actual workforce—not just the office staff. At Crewscope, we’ve seen 95% worker participation because our platform meets field workers where they are.
- Measure concrete outcomes: Set specific success metrics before implementing any new technology. For one of our clients, a 14% labor productivity improvement translated to over $20,000 in savings for just one crew over three months.
- Invest with a purpose and conviction: In a lot of cases, there is an upfront investment cost to technology. In many cases, it can come across as an extra overhead that goes against efficiency. If there is a good fit, that investment can return in many folds if you take the chance. Always choosing the least costly route doesn’t translate to better financial results.
- Consider working with SME technology providers: There is a significant advantage in working with SME software companies that is often overlooked when choosing a solution. SMEs in software can address feedback much faster than larger solutions. Fixing a bug in a big ERP can take 1-2 years of harassing the vendor if it gets fixed at all, whereas companies like us can often address issues in days! Specifically, if your contracts are not as big as those of other clients, you won’t have influence over the roadmap with larger providers.
Remember that technology implementation is about people first, process second, and technology third. The right solution should be intuitive enough that your most technology-averse team member can use it successfully on day one. What works for office might not work for the field.
Looking ahead, how do you envision technology continuing to transform the construction industry, and what role do you see Crewscope playing in this transformation?
My simple answer is that AI is going to upend the entire industry in the next five years! I expect the next five years to feel like a “before-and-after” moment for construction. AI that already writes code and manages logistics will finally reach the job site, but it won’t start with robots—it will start with better decisions:
- From paper plans to live, data-driven coaching. Once AI can read yesterday’s production numbers and tomorrow’s weather, it can flag delays before they happen and suggest fixes in plain language.
- From overtime culture to outcome culture. Better communication and progress visibility through AI in real time will support how today’s choices affect tomorrow’s outcomes and will start enabling the industry to focus on outcomes rather than timesheets! Hours stop creeping, and pride kicks in.
- From tribal knowledge to a searchable playbook. Crews change, but an AI that learns from thousands of past shifts can keep best practices on the phones of the new hires.
When the usage of Agentic AI becomes a norm in other industries, my prediction is that construction will have a rude awakening and will try to play catch-up. An acceleration of adoption is on the horizon.
