THE CHALLENGE
As Australia’s leading infrastructure contractor, John Holland has shaped many of the nation’s most ambitious construction, transport, and infrastructure projects. Following extensive research with its Energy business and strategic consultation with executives, John Holland recognised a crucial opportunity to improve productivity and form deeper relationships with clients through a customer-centric mindset. Its traditional tender process wasn’t serving the modern market demands, prioritising process over clients needs. The organisation needed to pivot from simply winning contracts to building lasting, meaningful partnerships with clients. John Holland partnered with The Strategy Group to transform their approach and building a CX excellence practice within their bid teams to drive a culture of customer-centric and inform client-led decision making.
THE APPROACH
Deeply understanding opportunities for the CX Practice to add meaningful value in the current process
To revolutionise John Holland’s approach to winning work, we launched a comprehensive analysis of the tender and pre-contracts process. Through internal consultations and targeted workshops, we gathered insights from key stakeholders—leaders, staff, and clients—to understand their challenges, needs, and aspirations.
We translated these findings into a detailed service blueprint, providing senior leadership with a clear visualisation of the current process. This powerful tool highlighted critical gaps and revealed strategic opportunities where the Customer Experience (CX) practice could make the most impact. More importantly, it showed how we could guide bid teams toward a more customer-centric mindset.
The service blueprint proved invaluable in two ways: first, as a diagnostic tool exposing areas needing improvement, and second, as a roadmap for implementation. It clearly defined the CX practice’s role throughout the tender process and outlined the specific tools and systems needed to embed customer-centricity into future operations.
OUTCOMES
Establishing a future state that places the customer at the heart of the tender process
Our collaborative approach ensured that stakeholders were actively engaged in every step of this transformation. By involving key decision-makers throughout the process, we not only mapped our current state but also built strong buy-in for the integration of Customer Experience practices into future operations. This inclusive methodology helped stakeholders understand both the strategic value and practical implementation requirements of our enhanced customer-centric approach.
The key deliverables included:
- Current State Analysis and Insights Report
- Current and future state blueprint
- Stakeholder engagement plan and implementation roadmap
