External Business Review (Dec22)

Digitally charged with an innovative mind

A year in the life of GHD Digital

The last two years have brought a constant stream of disruption. The global pandemic, climate change and uncertainty caused by world events have upended supply chains, impacted workforces and imposed an even greater reliance on digital technology.

Despite these outside forces, digital transformation remains the biggest source of disruption – and opportunity - for clients today.

In this climate of volatility, the need to stay relevant by finding new ways to create value for stakeholders is critical.

Through collaboration, openness, and thinking outside of the norm, we can drive impact at scale and accelerate the pathway to a solution for global challenges.

GHD Digital is one of the fastest-growing digital businesses globally in professional services. By infusing digital and innovation into our conventional client services and adopting an ‘outside-in’ strategy, we have not only created new trajectories of growth for our clients but provided a digital transformation pathway for their business. These growth segments are changing the genetic code and mindset of legacy businesses and industries.

Growing is significantly less risky than not growing, which is why we have created a growth-orientated business. This unique business model is rare in our industry. And in FY22, we embraced our varied business models and:

- Created additional products and services

- Invested more on technology upgrades

- Strengthened our sales force

- Maintained intense execution focus

- Took strategic risks. awards won 39+

Helping you transform for good

We have a blend of tailored capabilities that form integrated solution delivery. Over 60 carefully curated capabilities are honed and finessed in four dedicated practices, designed to cross-pollinate in sectors and regions to provide integrated solution delivery.

Digital Intelligence

Combining our industry expertise, cutting-edge data science technology and client-focused innovation, we help you to achieve lasting business value by harnessing your most critical enterprise information.

Digital Experience

We apply technology to help clients execute their digital strategy, achieve operational excellence, and support business transformation through enhanced digital customer experiences. We automate operations, connect environments, manage and secure digital assets and create immersive and extended reality experiences.

Digital Innovation: D-Lab

We help clients think, act and work differently. Our innovation specialists and intrapreneurs use a range of innovation tools, methodologies and strategies to help innovate, transform, and create new business value.

Products and Platforms

We build scalable enterprise platform solutions and tailored products that improve efficiency and enhance customer experience.

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Laser focus on client outcomes

The pandemic has radically reshaped the priorities for clients. New challenges have been created, while old ones have been recontextualised, transforming clients’ expectations for what their businesses can achieve in even a relatively short window of time.

With an increased focus on delivering a premium service to clients, we enhanced our innovation capabilities to service clients in key geographies and markets. Leveraging 90 years of global and local expertise and over 10,000 engineering, construction, advisory and design personnel, GHD Digital draws upon the offerings from GHD, GHD Advisory and global partners to provide a holistic, comprehensive service through value-add integration.

In FY22, we regularly joined forces with GHD and GHD Advisory which saw several successful projects delivered.

Charging the mining industry into an electric future

Mining giants BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale are establishing a Mining Taskforce within CharIN, supported by the International Council on Mining and Metals. With the interoperability framework now developed through a co-design process led by GHD, the new task force is an exciting opportunity for the mining industry to lead, solving interoperability barriers and working towards standardisation.

This taskforce is building on the momentum created by the Charge On Innovation Challenge (COIC).

It became apparent that the ideas developed and electrification more broadly, require interoperability and standardisation in order to be universally effective and sustainable. The three founding COIC patrons engaged GHD to co-develop an interoperability framework and collaborative mechanism to accelerate the standardisation of haul truck electrification.

“By driving interoperability standards, we will reduce the potential for unnecessary duplication in charging infrastructure and the total cost of ownership, along with safety considerations,” shared Santi Pal, Managing Director Group Technical, Rio Tinto.

These bespoke innovation advisory and facilitation services resulted in the mining industry’s endorsement of an Interoperability Taskforce Charter. Relationships were strengthened in an environment of open collaboration, externally managed by GHD to acknowledge and protect intellectual property and commercial interests.

The taskforce charter creates a collaborative and safe pathway to accelerate change - from designing industry development initiatives to researching best practice approaches, managing innovation activities, and encouraging open stakeholder collaboration, to supporting governance and relationship models to influence future ways of working. Electrifying haul trucks with interoperable solutions will require sustained industry-wide collaboration, however the benefits of reducing the number of charging standards are compelling.

Through unified, industry-wide collaboration, this taskforce will help move the industry towards interoperable solutions and a sustainable, low-carbon economy.

Read the full story here.

Advanced analytics provides insight into the equitable replacement of lead service lines

For our client, the average watermain is over 100 years old and has approximately 40,000 Lead Service Lines (LSLs) that experience upwards of 500 watermain and Service Line (SL) breaks per year. This results in disrupted services and pose a public health risk of lead exposure, making the replacement of these lines critical. The breakages are not only expensive to repair, but also divert human and capital resources away from other vital services.

In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Lead and Copper Revised Rule (LCRR) imposed for regulatory compliance in removing lead from the nation’s drinking water. As a result, our client decided to transition to a strategic planning framework with an equity lens to target marginalised communities.

As there were approximately 32,000 known LSLs and up to 60,000 unknown SLs, the missing data needed to be collected efficiently. And, due to the urban density of the service area, physical excavation for material identification might range up to USD3,000 per site. Instead, to identify where LSLs were located and to reduce excavation costs, we provided a package of analytical solutions to guide their decisions which wouldn’t require breaking any ground.

Leveraging data and location intelligence, we developed a new metric for each pipe in the water system that could be compared and prioritised for replacement. We developed a heat map to visualise areas within their service area with the highest break frequency and statistical analysis that predicts the likelihood of each pipe segment breaking within the following year.

Now, our client has a Lead Service Line Inventory (LSLI) that documents and verifies which materials were used in constructing each individual SL for both public (outside) and private (inside) sections. Additionally, they are positioned for a proactive Lead Service Line Replacement (LSLR) program that prioritises homes with a high likelihood of lead and a low-cost replacement, clustered in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Read the full story here.

In recognition of the work we have delivered across the globe, we received numerous awards, including:

+ AIIA iAwards

+ APEX Awards

+ AVA Digital Awards

+ Chair’s Award for Technical Excellence

+ Consult Australia Awards

+ dotCOMM Awards

+ Hermes Creative Awards

+ MarCom Award

+ WebAward.

Working on the Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP), GHD Digital and AECOM collaborated with LXRP to deliver ‘The Hive’ which has been recognised as an ABA100 Winner for Business Innovation in the Australian Business Awards 2021.

“The Hive is our innovation program, which specialises in creating transformative initiatives, and bringing positive advancements not only to our projects, but to the broader infrastructure sector. We’re thrilled to receive the Business Innovation Award, which shows the LXRP’s leadership and achievements in this space, while we work to improve the way Victorians live, work and travel.”

– Kevin Devlin, CEO, LXRP

Creating lasting communities

We are playing a leading role in accelerating the digital transformation of our client’s environmental programs and GHD’s environmental business. In FY22, our highlights include:

01. Environmental reporting for a number of our clients using GHD’s Automated Report Creator (ARC) resulting in reduced costs and improved consistency in quality of reports for our clients

02. Helped many clients develop Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and decarbonisation goals, life-cycle analyses, data strategies, and assisted them to select and implement digital tools (including partner software) to track progress against goals

03. Transformed the EHS program, including business processes and digital systems, of a mining client through close collaboration with GHD Advisory and the EHS service line

04. Developed a Residual Waste Analytics model using artificial intelligence and machine learning for a city to improve the accuracy of landfill capacity planning, and enable planning scenarios to be run based on future variations in population growth, recycling, changes in regulations, etc.

05. Created an integrated data management and map-based portal to enable a client to easily and quickly view Contamination, Assessment, and Remediation (CAR) data and documents, and obtain approvals for subsurface activities across a complex and large industrial facility

06. Helped a transportation client better understand the risks and track possible impacts to its rail operations from wildfires using a predictive solution developed by our location intelligence team.

Intelligent automation paves the way for COVID safe workplaces

With the pandemic continuing to challenge workplace norms, there is a demand for automated COVID management tools that minimise this disruption and safeguard employee wellbeing.

“Our clients are continuing to face the very real challenges uncovered by the pandemic and are seeking easy-to-integrate solutions to maintain operational efficiency and employee safety,” said Kumar Parakala, President, GHD Digital.

We supported the implementation of a custom COVID Site Protection Readiness System for Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) Alliances in Victoria, Australia. The system was designed to assist with managing COVID across our client’s various sites within Melbourne, reduce potential site closure impacts and accelerate contact tracing.

This project helped cement our team as one of LXRP’s trusted technology implementation partners. Beyond the strengthened relationship, the system has set the precedent for Alliance site connectivity and data via a centralised database. The potential of such a database is broad with extension into other cross-program delivery management opportunities.

As we look ahead, this low-cost, lightweight solution will be selectively leveraged and implemented for other key clients.

The solution is designed to seamlessly collect and connect data and drive automated information sharing for LXRP Alliance occupied sites. It is digitising their COVID management approach and positioning LXRP to keep step alongside the evolving pandemic,”

Sukalp Sharma, Global Practice Director - Digital Experience, GHD Digital

The unpredictability of COVID was accounted for in the platform design through the flexible and adaptable infrastructure, built for ongoing future changes. New functionality or data capture requirements can be implemented efficiently.

Read the full story here.

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Partnerships that empower our clients

GHD Digital is partnering with select industry leaders to create and deliver transformational solutions to enhance the overall value GHD provides clients. Together with our partners, we are creating innovative GHD solutions and joint propositions in the industries and sectors where GHD operates.

We achieved a new Esri Partner Network specialty with global leader in location intelligence, Esri, to consult, offer and implement Esri’s ArcGIS Urban - an immersive 3D experience for urban designers and planners.

By meeting the speciality criteria, GHD Digital has achieved a level of expertise to bring precinct and region ‘Digital Twin’ best practice for municipalities and local governments.

Esri’s ArcGIS Urban software applies geographic information systems (GIS) data to urban planning projects to streamline collaborative urban design, and analysislifting the benchmark in clarity, coordination and visualisation.

City designers, planners and architects have online access to location and contextual information critical to proactively impact desired outcomes. The seamless 3D visualisation enables users to consider the project at hand from multiple perspectives.

Joy Chen, GHD Digital’s Global Technical Lead for ArcGIS Urban says, “the ArcGIS Urban takes location intelligence and GIS in a new direction in the 3D world, allowing people to view their living cities more visually through an online portal. It also brings

opportunities to the community for their say in future development.”

By having an intuitive easy-to-use platform, infrastructure, precincts, and communities can be better planned. The tool provides a detailed perspective of land-use and infrastructure to empower decisionmaking, improving planning workflows and community engagement.

Richard Redman, GHD Digital’s Global Product Development Manager - Digital Intelligence said, “we are excited to continue to work in partnership to improve the physical, natural and social environments of the many communities in which we operate.”

eSolutionsGroup rebranded to GHD Digital

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, eSolutions had been serving hundreds of municipalities and public sector organisations in North America for over 20 years by providing industry-leading digital solutions and related services.

GHD acquired eSolutions in 2015 to expand its digital offerings to critical government and infrastructure sectors but until now has continued operating under the eSolutions brand.

“While our name is changing, our dedication and commitment to our clients and the citizens and communities they serve, is not,” said Ali Carden, Global Practice Director for Products and Platforms, GHD Digital.

Integrating eSolutions’ offerings into the GHD Digital brand is an important step in the evolution of GHD Digital in the public sector. It will enable us to deliver a broader suite of digital offerings, from process automation to advanced analytics and digital transformation, helping our clients to reduce cost, improve efficiencies and enhance citizen experience.

“By integrating eSolutions fully into the GHD Digital brand we can respond to our clients’ changing needs during these turbulent times,” said Kumar Parakala, President, GHD Digital. “This next step represents boundless opportunities for us to co-create digital solutions that reach the heart of communities.”

“We value the relationships we’ve built with our clients over the past two decades. We will continue to place our clients’ needs at the core of our product design and development to help them build vibrant, forward-thinking communities.”

– Ali Carden, Global Practice Director for Products and Platforms, GHD Digital

Understanding the innovation imperative

“In the next one or two years, organisations will have a once-in-a-century opportunity to leapfrog. Industry lines have been blurred, symmetric competition is coming into and impacting various industries and sectors and therefore others will have a significant firstmover advantage over these organisations So it’s not a question of, “Should we grow and focus on the future?”, it’s a question of, “How quickly can we grow, thrive, and plan ahead based on digital innovation?”

– Kumar Parakala, President, GHD Digital

In March 2022, we partnered with Source Global Research to conduct a global study. Our survey of 777 senior executives from across the globe has uncovered a global innovation phenomenonaccelerated, concentrated and expedited by the tumult of the last few years. A mindset shift is clear across the traditionally laggard infrastructure, construction, transportation, energy and natural resources sectors, with executives uniting through a refreshed push for innovation within their organisations.

The survey found that digital transformation is regarded as the main driver of disruption across industries and countries. However, despite some clear vulnerabilities, an overwhelming 94 percent of executives see this as an opportunity, not a threat, with intelligent automation, advanced automation and artificial intelligence/ machine learning being cited as critical technologies for their future success.

The survey also sought to understand what clients were looking for when it came to professional services firms. The outlook for GHD is significant. The data suggests that we are in the top four of professional services firms that are most relevant to their innovation needs.

We practice what we preach

It can often be difficult for organisations to know where to begin with innovation management, particularly when they don’t have employees with expertise in the area. This is why it’s beneficial to embed an innovation team within an organisation.

These are not the only people who innovate or do innovative work, but rather are a team that dedicates their work to it, to help both their organisation and their clients transform their futures. GHD has seen the benefits of having a dedicated innovation team since the formation of D-Lab in 2018.

In addition to helping a range of clients, from major infrastructure to not-for-profits, D-Lab has helped GHD transform itself through implementing innovation management processes internally.

Our focus on Innovation takes lessons learned from 2020 whilst challenging our assumptions about how to create, deliver and capture value in a post COVID-19 environment.

The benefits of this endeavour continue to bear fruit for our organisation, particularly in the form of previously untapped sectors and product innovation.

“Innovation starts with a mindset. We want to unlock the ideas of GHD people around the world and enable them to instinctively lead change both within our enterprise and with our clients.

Our global leadership teams recognise that building a genuinely innovative culture is an iterative journey. While technology is a tool that will help enable our work, the success of implementation sits with our people.

That is why it is so inspiring to see the seeds of innovation starting to take shape across the enterprise, as numerous cross-disciplinary teams use their collective genius to embed new ways of working.”

– Ashley Wright, Enterprise CEO, GHD

Our leaders are creating the businesses of tomorrow

Talent is the engine for value creation and a leading indicator of where our business is headed. The FY22 growth agenda was driven by a team of talented leaders across the globe. Our leaders come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and they are much more than their job titles. They are also accountants, actors, artists, athletes, economists, innovators, lawyers, musicians and software developers.

We often focus on digital transformation but underplay the people. Not only do people create the technology to fuel transformation,

they incite how it connects, integrates, works and automates. Key to this is diversity. Generating ideas is the easy part. It’s the merging of ideas from people with different backgrounds that culminates in innovation.

We have made Inclusion and Diversity a priority and to take actions that help foster a high-performance culture through diversity. After all, innovation is a by-product of a diversity of thought.

Women in engineering and technology careers are still highly underrepresented.

We are focused on changing the statistics by sourcing talented females from around the globe to bring fresh and innovative perspectives. This is reflected in our global leadership team this consists of 50 percent gender parity. Across our regional teams, we not only display a diversity of gender, but a diversity of race, age, skills, experience, and insights.

In a highly competitive and dynamic market, it’s critical that we attract and retain the best talent with diverse backgrounds and experience.

“I have witnessed many companies boldly embrace digital disruption and embark on transformation journeys enabled by new technologies. And those I have seen not meet their full potential have one thing in common. Their leaders did everything but change themselves.”

– Kumar Parakala, President, GHD Digital

Find out more: Kumar Parakala | President, GHD Digital kumar.parakala@ghd.com