Integrated infrastructure: operating model and go-to-market

PROPERTY, INFRASTRUCTURE & CONSTRUCTION  ·  STRATEGY  ·  OPERATING MODEL

The situation

A major Australasian infrastructure and property group wanted to capture a forecast surge in public and private infrastructure spending. Its civil engineering and specialist asset-services divisions ran as separate businesses with no shared capability by design. Engineering concentrated on large transport projects; services held fragmented capabilities across disconnected sectors. The group was sub-scale in high-growth markets against its main competitors, and the absence of shared incentives or culture kept the two divisions from working together. The target was five billion dollars in combined medium-term revenue, which needed an integrated strategy, a disciplined way of choosing bids, and structural change.

Before

Autonomous divisions

Sub-scale sectors

Fragmented bidding

No bid incentives

Ad hoc partnering

The work

Retained as primary strategic adviser, we led a group-wide review to design a combined go-to-market structure and an operating roadmap, in two phases:

  • Set near-term and medium-term target structures, with market-facing business units to originate higher-value work in communities, renewables, and remediation, delivered through leaner regional units.

  • Consolidated and expanded a central technical-services hub, pooling digital engineering, power and control, traffic management, and intelligent transport systems into an internal consulting network.

  • Defined a project-selection method using a prioritisation matrix across financial and non-financial measures, including size, feasibility, competitive concentration, and strategic fit, to give an objective go or no-go gateway for major bids.

  • Reworked intercompany rules and project measures to reward cross-divisional bidding, and mapped an exit from sub-scale, non-core lines to free capacity for end-to-end civil and technology work.

After

Sector-led business units

Pooled technical services

Disciplined bid selection

Shared group measures

Focused core growth toward five billion dollars

The outcome

  • A three-stage roadmap to move the business into an integrated asset-delivery model.

  • Structural positions to build end-to-end capability in rail, telecommunications, and renewable energy.

  • A reworked origination model to lift bid productivity and win rates on complex public-private partnerships and unsolicited proposals.