Embedding Customer-Centricity to Win a Large Public Tender

Challenge

The three joint venture (JV) partners (John Holland, CPB Contractors, and Ghella) have been involved in a series of tenders for Sydney Metro over the last years. After unfortunately not being awarded the most recent project, the JV partners engaged The Strategy Group to strategise on what needs to change in their tender process to maximise their chances of success with new Eastern Tunnelling Package (ETP) tender, adopting a more “client- & user-centric” approach.

Approach

As part of our involvement, we embedded the five principles within the tender team:

1. Delighting the customer: Focusing on being customer centric with every aspect of the project ultimately drove the best solutions. The change in mindset was further realised through the customer value proposition we co-created.
2. Empathetic communication: Ensuring 2-way communication enabled the team to be on the same page throughout the tender process. Asking open questions allowed JCG JV to truly understand the project’s needs. 
3. Leadership advocacy: Having the project leaders fully on board with their customer-centric strategy encouraged the rest of the team to trust the direction they were heading in. Through leading by example and living the values of customer centricity, the whole team was empowered to embody these values in their practice.
4. Clear messaging and storytelling: Reiterating the central message of delighting the customer and approaching problems with empathy engrained the CX mission within every team member. 
5. Iterative problem solving: By planning, designing, building, testing and refining ideas, we delivered a technically superior solution that met the needs of Sydney Metro and the community. 

Outcomes

Organisation-wide culture change to drive growth and customer-centricity.

The three joint venture (JV) partners won the $1.6bn contract to dig the final tunnel section of Sydney Metro West under the city’s central business district (ETP).

Sydney Metro mentioned that they have been ‘delighted’ by the joint venture partners along the tender process and that the great level of collaboration between their team and the JV partners team was a critical factor in the decision to award the contract.